After our crazy/miserable first day, we decided we weren't going to set any alarms in the morning. Our bodies needed to sleep and recover a bit! Since it was the middle of the day our time, we fell asleep right away but woke up a few hours later. It was kind of like we took a nap and then we were ready to be awake, even though it was around 3 am London time. After laying in bed wide awake for a few hours, we ended up falling back asleep until 11 AM!! I couldn't believe it. We slept for over FOURTEEN hours! I've never slept so long in my life, but obviously our bodies needed it!
Since we slept in for so long, I basically had to remove all the museums we planned on seeing from our itinerary. Oh well! The one thing that was on the very top of my list in London was The Tower of London, so we dedicated the day to that :)
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I miss hearing "mind the gap" 50 times a day! :) |
We took a train into central London and then walked across the London Bridge. I couldn't believe we were actually walking across London Bridge. THE London Bridge! Suzette and I of course had to sing "London Bridge is falling down" :) It was raining but none of us cared. It just added to the
feel of London :)
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awesome view of Tower Bridge! |
We were all feeling SOOOOO much better after getting all that sleep and the day was absolutely perfect. When we got to Tower of London I was just giddy!
The coolest thing about being at the Tower of London was getting to see all the poppies. It has been 100 years since World War I, so they filled the mote of the Tower with red poppies to honor every fallen soldier. Each poppy was handmade from ceramic and there were THOUSANDS of them. It was really amazing to see.
When we got inside, we took a tour with the Beefeaters aka the Yeomen Warders. They are the "ceremonial guardians" of the Tower of London and basically the cutest little guys ever. I really wanted to get my picture with them, but I wasn't sure if it was appropriate or not. Dang it.
Since it was raining we couldn't do the official walking tour, but one of the Beefeaters took us into the chapel and just talked with us for 30 minutes about the history of the Tower. He was really sassy and I basically loved him.
Then we went to look at the Crown Jewels. They don't allow pictures, but I snapped this one right as we were walking in. One of the Beefeaters shot a look at me and before he could tell me off I said, "last one! Putting it away now!!" haha :) Woops...
It was unreal
(sorry, you're going to hear that word a lot) to see all the crowns and scepters and robes and jewels from all the kings and queens. It's amazing how big the diamonds were!
Next we went inside the actual castle (The White Tower) to see the armory displays. Pretty neat!
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This was Henry VIII armor... can you see why this one cracked me up? :) |
The Tower of London is infamous for the torturing and murders that happened here, so of course we had to check out the display of the torturing equipment. It definitely gave me the heebie jeebies...
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How cool is that bridge?! |
As we were leaving the Tower and heading for the tube, we ran into my Aunt Wendy and Uncle Ray! I couldn't believe it! We were planning to meet them in a few hours for dinner, but what are the chances?! Wendy is my dad's sister and the last time I saw her was when she visited over 10 years ago. I recognized her as she walked by and stopped in front of her saying, "Aunt Wendy!" We were all in a little bit of shock!
Our next stop was Parliament. We walked out of the tube station and BAM! There was Big Ben! I couldn't believe it!
It was SOOO amazing to see such an iconic building in real life!
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I couldn't stop taking pictures of it! |
We walked about five minutes to Westminster Abbey and walked along the grounds. Ahh! Another iconic and BEAUTIFUL building.
We were all just so happy and having a MUCH better day! We had some more time to spare before we were meeting up with my aunt and uncle, so we decided to take the tube over to Covent Garden. It's a big shopping center with this really cool indoor market place, known for having street performers and music. It was really cool!
We stopped in a chocolate shop and got some Italian (I think?) chocolates. Yum!
Then we walked through the cool, alley-like streets to Salisbury Pub to meet my aunt. Going to a real-life London pub was on my "London bucket list." Also, how many people do you know that go to London and then meet up with their aunt in a pub?! UNREAL!




Even though it was really amazing to see all the iconic buildings, the highlight of my day was of course getting to spend an hour or so with my cute Aunt Wendy and Uncle Ray. I'm going to cry just typing this because I'm just SO SO SO happy that I got to see my family. Growing up with all of my aunts/uncles/cousins in England (and Canada!) was hard for me. I was always so jealous of people that had cousins and family that lived so close. I've always ached to know my family and especially to visit them in England. I just was so overwhelmed with joy to be sitting in a pub next to my sweet aunt just chatting and eating dinner. It was honestly my dream come true! Thank you SO much Aunt Wendy for taking the time to come into crazy London to see us! You have NO idea how much it meant to me!!! :D
It was seriously the PERFECT day and I was basically on cloud 9 the entire day. I can't believe it really happened! I'm still in shock over it all!