London Day 4: British Museum, Harrods, Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, and King's Cross Station

Schoolwork and a bad cold put me behind in my blog posts, but here is my final post about London! Hurray!

London Day 4, Sunday February 24
        After a good night's rest we woke up and had breakfast at the B&B. It was extra to have the traditional English Breakfast, so we ate the continental breakfast which was the best continental breakfast I have ever had! I had a croissant, yogurt, egg/omelet, and a banana. I was very happy after that (I miss big breakfasts), and didn't get hungry an hour or 2 after I had eaten, unlike here in Spain!
         We took the Tube (Underground/Metro) to the British Museum. I might be getting better at figuring out Metro systems, but museums are so difficult! All of them have different layouts, and floors, and rooms, and its really confusing! The British Museum was not as bad as the Louvre, but if you have a limited amount of time and you know what you want to see, look up what room it is in before you go. It will save you a lot of time! I had written down what I wanted to see and what floor and section it was on, but a lot of sections were big and the room number would have helped. 

 The Rosetta Stone! It has Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphs and Demotic. This has been the key to deciphering hieroglyphs, and learning about the ancient Egyptians.

 

Parthenon Sculptures. These sculptures were in the pediment of the Parthenon in Athens, built by the Greeks in mid 400s BC. Around 500 AD, the Parthenon was turned into a Christian church by the Romans, and some of the sculptures were removed or destroyed. Then during the Ottoman Empire, in the mid 1400s the Parthenon was turned into a mosque, resulting in further changes. In the late 1600s, the Ottoman Turks were using the Parthenon to store gun powder (sounds like a great idea, right?) while under attack from the Venetians. Then the Parthenon was attacked by the Venetians with canons and destroyed. After this, people started taking pieces of the Parthenon, and in the late 1800s the Earl of Elgin (British) took a large collection of the sculptures and marbles and later sold them to the British government, which is why they are in the British Museum. There is much debate over whether these pieces (and many other important pieces of art) should be returned to the country they were found in. Today, the Parthenon is slowly being rebuilt.

Egyptian Mummies

A pyramid of British pounds!

Easter Island statue...it reminded me of the Night at the Museum!

Turquoise Aztec serpent

         After our time at the British Museum, we looked for lunch. We ate Pret a Manger, which are sandwich places/cafes that were all over London. I had a sandwich (with mayonnaise! They don't put anything besides meat and cheese on sandwiches in Spain), water, and popcorn (actual popcorn!). It was a good, fast meal. 
          Our next stop was Harrods! Harrods is a really upscale department store, so like Saks Fifth Avenue, or Neiman Marcus. Wow, Harrods was fancy, that is all I can say! Some of the rooms looked like exhibits, like you weren't supposed to touch anything, just look at everything and its expensiveness. We found the gift shop area, and looked around. They had so many teddy bears, purses, and bags that said Harrods on them. I decided to buy a Harrods bear! Now I can say I shopped at Harrods!

My Harrods bear, isn't he cute!?

 

           After our shopping trip to Harrods, we tried to get to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We didn't realize that one of the lines on the Tube was under repair, and there was no other way to get there, so we had walk about 15 minutes. Once we found the Tower of London, it was closing! Apparently they have 2 sets of hours (winter and summer) and I looked at the wrong times online....I was so sad! A lot of other people thought the same thing, so I wasn't the only one. That's ok though, now I have an excuse to go to London again... I didn't get to see the Crown Jewels! Or go inside Buckingham Palace. We walked around the Tower of London, and also walked on Tower Bridge (aka where they hung the Olympic rings during the 2012 Olympics). 

Tower of London

On the Tower Bridge...perfect timing with double-decker bus and a taxi

Tower Bridge

         After going to Tower Bridge, while trying to find an Underground station we just kind of came upon St. Paul's Cathedral, which is what we were trying to take the metro to, so that worked out nicely. The scene from Mary Poppins with the lady feeding the birds, and selling bags of crumbs for "tuppence" (two pence), was supposed to be outside of St. Paul's, and I realized that once I got there!

St. Paul's Cathedral. It was hard to get a good picture since it was dark out!

         After we went to St. Paul's Cathedral, we went back to the area near our B&B and found a Chipotle! That's right, a Chipotle! I was so excited! Even though they gave you smaller portions than in the US, it was still pretty much the same. It tasted really good! 
          After our delicious dinner, we went back to our B&B to figure out how we were going to get to the airport the next day. We were flying out of Stansted airport, which was kind of far away from London. The desk person recommended a bus to take, so we booked it online and were ready to go!
         Then we were off to King's Cross Station! Yay for being a Harry Potter lover! So we got on the metro to the station, and then found the actual train station. We saw platforms 8-11, and then platforms 1-7 (or something like that) but we couldn't actually go on the platforms unless you had a train ticket! We were so confused. Claire tried to get on Wi-Fi to look it up, and I found a map. We had literally passed where it was like 2 times, it wasn't on the platforms, but between shops in the middle of the 2 sets of platforms. But we finally found Platform 9 3/4! We bought tickets in the Platform 9 3/4 shop and then took our pictures. There was a line (or queue as they like to say in England) to take pictures, it was really funny!

See you later, I have to catch my train to the Hogwarts Express!

Things I learned in London

• I need to go back to see the Crown Jewels, go inside Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Highclere Castle (aka Downton Abbey), Harry Potter set tour thing, and go horseback riding. And have Prince Harry or William teach me polo and then have tea with Duchess Kate and her baby (I can dream, right?)
• Two days might have been enough for Paris, but for me it wasn't enough for London!
• I was determined to find something to buy with the Queen's corgi's on it, but I couldn't find anything! Nothing! I guess I will put that on my to do list for next time too...Look how cute they are! 

Cheers!