London Pt.3

After falling asleep watching TV, we of course eventually woke up. That was possibly the worst bit of prose I've ever composed. There a rhyme, bit of an improvement. Zora and I had breakfast together after checking out of our room. Umi has a luggage room so we dropped our bags there. After breakfast we took a cab to Westminster. It wasn't quite like I remembered it. Amongst other changes it was closed, it being a Sunday morning. The Abbey is a cluster of several chapels around a central cathedral. Each of them would be spectacular on their own but together the effect is just more powerful. The whole thing is overlooked by Parliament and Big Ben. From Westminster we walked to Parliament to take photos, and listened to Big Ben toll noon. Very cool. That ring is an icon to say nothing of the clock.

Headed across the river to do more exploring and photo taking. The weather was cold and windy, and the water was kicked up along with it. Not a great day to be out, but you almost don't notice looking at the mindblowing detail of the Houses of Parliament. I have no idea how a mind could put together all that detail and all those mini-spires. Down the way we found the aquarium and due to Zora's sharp eye, gelato!

Having seen all we had time for and picked up a few souvenirs from a street vendor we walked back to the Abbey to hail a cab. This is when things started to collapse....

The driver had no idea where our hotel was, and despite trying to guide him using google maps on my iPhone had got very turned around and stuck in construction. He ended up leaving us nearly 20 minutes from our hotel. By the time we got back to Umi, called another cab, and made it to Victoria station (the wrong part of it due to a misunderstanding between the driver and myself) we had missed our bus. It took us awhile to walk with our bags from the train terminal to the bus terminal. A lot of stressing and being tired. Lucky for us we booked tickets on a bus leaving only an hour and a half later than our original.

We certainly were a bit more run down getting home than we hoped to be, and slightly later, but it wasn't a total disaster. With a bit of luck and a dash of grit we righted things just fine. Overall it was worth it to see some of Whitehall and the other big attractions. What kind of trip to London would it be without Parliament? Its small troubles like we had that make things fun!

Quiet weekend this week, at least for me. Best wishes to everyone at home, and good luck to those waiting to hear back from graduate schools! They'll be luck to have you.