Weekend In London

Hi readers,

I just spent the weekend in London with my boyfriend for my birthday. We had a great time and there was a lot to see and do! It was hard to pick out the four things we ended up doing, but I enjoyed them all. We traveled down on Friday and enjoyed being in first class. The two hours flew by and so did some nice countryside. The hotel wasn't that far from Euston, but with all the bags we decided to grab a taxi and it was nice to see London going past the window. We stayed at a Raddison Blu Edwardian hotel which was close to the theaters.

We went to the British Museum and spent a lot of time wondering around looking at all the different displays. My favorite part was the Egyptian room. I also liked the Roman room too. There was information about the archaeologists and explorers that discovered and brought back the items, which was very interesting. The museum was really busy and it was hot too. We didn't actually get to see everything because we only had an hour or so before we had to get ready to go out.

We had a posh Chinese meal and then went to watch Les Mis. It was really good and I enjoyed being a part of it. I didn't do much singing though! Being on stage, brought it more to life and enchanted the experience of watching the musical. They added a couple of songs which just created a flow into the next one, so I didn't mind that. All the actors were really good and the singing was perfect.

I do enjoy going to the theater to see plays and musicals. I'm sure in the future I'll go more often and there's a lot more out there I want to see. My boyfriend wanted to see The Book Of Moran, but we couldn't offered to go this time. Hopefully, it'll come to Manchester as staying in London is expensive!

The hotel bedroom was really nice though and I did get some sleep before we went to breakfast the next morning. I had pancakes which were amazing. We then headed out for a full day of walking and being being on the Underground. We had planned to go to the London Eye and the zoo, luckily they were on the same underground line, so we could easily get to them from and back from the hotel. Also we had pre-booked tickets for both, which provided to be so worth doing.

We arrived at the London eye way early, so got to walk up and down, before we went on it. I enjoyed doing this and I got to stand on the bridge across from Big Ben. There was a great view of the wheel and Westminster from there. It was mega busy though and there were people everywhere. It was also hot, though we did have a sharp shower later on. We went to pick up the tickets for the Eye and it was really busy and even more so when we had to go and queue up to get on! The fast track tickets cut the waiting time in half or even less and we were soon stepping on the wheel.

The view almost straight a way was good and as the wheel went further up, it just got better. You could see so far and get a good view of London. There were screens in the pod and it showed all the important buildings. It did start to rain a little once we reached the top and started coming down again. This meant that the view of the other side of the pod was rain splattered. The rain stopped when we got off, though I would have been happy to have gone around again!

We then caught the underground to London Zoo. I was really excited as I love zoos and seeing all the animals. We had to walk 15-20 minutes when we got off the train. We stopped in a coffee shop for a drink and homemade cake. When we got to the zoo was I starting to get tried. The weather was also starting to turn. We went to the Aquarium and reptile house, before going to see the monkeys and gorillas. They were inside and mostly sleeping or high up in their enclosures. We left and went to see the Pygmy hippo talk. That was interesting and we got to see the hippo eating and laying in the their 'hot tub house.'

Heading back to see the penguin talk we went to the see the fruit bats. I really like bats and find them fascinating to watch. It was too dark in their cave to take any good photos though. We also stopped for ice creams. It felt like we were in the queue for them for awhile. Not because it was busy, but because the staff were slow and they were also making milkshakes. We had just enough time to eat before we went to the penguin area. The talk about them was really good and it was very popular. We got to see the penguins diving for fish and also eating them out of the keeper's hands.

At the end, we went to the butterfly house which was just behind the penguins. I love butterflies and could have spent a lot longer watching them. My camera ran out of battery at this point. I wanted to go and see the big cats and the other animals that were on the other side of the zoo, but my feet were really hurting. We decided to head back in a taxi and get ready to go to an American Diner tea.

  The next morning, I so didn't want to get out of bed. My feet were still hurting and we'd had a really late night. However, we had to go to breakfast, pack and check out by 11am. Having slowly done this, we left our bags at the hotel and went to the National Gallery. It was a few minutes walk away at Trafalgar Square. When we got there, we found that there was an event on for the Tour De France and the place was noisy and packed. The gallery, though quieter was just as busy. Though I did enjoy looking at paintings and galleries, I ended up sweeping through most of the rooms. Sometimes it was hard to see a painting because of a cluster or tour group of people standing in front of it. However, it was good and I left feeling impressed by the art I did get to see.

It was then time to say goodbye to London and ahead back home to Manchester. I had a really good time and I enjoyed the parts of London I did get to see. Next time I go, I'm so going to Highgate Cemetery!

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