London, Day 2

The second day in London started around 10 AM. The first thing was to take care of breakfast. It turned out there was little to no food left in the kitchen, so we went to a cafe in Hyde Park for breakfast. I got french toast--that didn't come with syrup. When we finished eating, we walked around the park a bit, stopping at the Princess Diana Memorial, and the Peter Pan Memorial.

Next, we got on the tube and saw Big Ben. Honestly, it was cool to see, but all the photos (including mine) and movies make it look much taller than it actually is. Along with Big Ben, we saw the rest of Parliament, and West Minster Abbey.

We headed over to Trafalgar Square, and Leicester Square, where we walked around and had lunch at a pub. I had fish and chips, and a Coke; they don't give free refills on soda over there. Another thing I noticed was that very few places were air conditioned. Normally, this wouldn't be a bad thing, but it was in the high 70's, with almost no breeze. We later found out that Saturday set the record for hottest October day in London.

After lunch, we went to the Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery. The nicest part was that these places had air conditioning. In case you're wondering, a gallery is a collection of only paintings, while museums have sculptures or other works that aren't paintings. Since museums and galleries are free over there, we perused quickly.

We got back to the dorm to make some dinner, which would be frozen pizza. Unfortunately, the oven settings there were a little different (including Celsius temperatures), and one of the two pizzas burned...badly. It was quite the effort to keep the smoke detector from going off, though.

The pizza didn't taste very good so Allison and I went to a pub, had a beer and some chips, and then met back up with everyone else to go to a club that night--5 women and myself. There were some issues getting in to the first place (a long story that includes a cover charge at the discretion of the door lady), so we took a cab over to Leicester Square, where, after talking to a few different club promoters, ended up at the Penthouse with Allison and Danielle. The other 3 decided to go elsewhere.

Being on the 7th, 8th, and 9th floors of a building, there were some great views from the club. The views were nice because they distracted from the strange dancing of the Europeans. This included two Indian men who were running/jumping around in some sort of dance that reminded me of the dodo birds from Ice Age.

We left the club around 1 AM, hit up McDonald's, which ended up being the most rewarding meal of the trip for me, and took a red double-decker bus home for the night.

Breakfast in Hyde Park.

Experiencing the Princess Diana Memorial.

Big Ben. It looks taller here than it does in person.

In front of the Oliver Cromwell statue at Parliament.

Trafalgar Square.

The effort to keep the smoke detector quiet. Eva is holding the burnt pizza.

Allison and I at the club.

The view from the club, Penthouse.