Part 2 - British Museum and Walkabout

Hallloooooo Londontown!

Welp, our first real day(9/9/15) in London was great. Here's how it went down...

We started out the day with breakfast over at The Blackbird pub. I ordered the Blackbird breakfast which consisted of two eggs, two sausages, two pieces of streaky bacon, baked beans, mushrooms, grilled tomato, hash browns, toast and butter. Deanna got the vegetarian English breakfast which was nearly the same without the meat. Deanna got an English breakfast tea and I got an Americano. This breakfast was delicious and the coffee was perfect. I was craving some good coffee. 

Deanna and her English Breakfast tea

The Blackbird Breakfast. YUM

Americano

After breakfast we went down into Earls Court UNDERGROUND to get on the tube. We bought an Oyster pass and loaded some money on them. We then went over to our platform and waited for the train. 

Earls Court Station

Stand to the right!

The train we were on was not too crowded, but we did have to stand. There was a good amount of room on the train, but no seats available. We stood in the back of the car while we watched folks coming and going for a few stops until we hit our stop at Holborn Station. The particular train we were on was very short and my head was about 2 inches from the highest point of the ceiling. I didn't get a picture because I was trying to play it cool. 

We have really begun to notice how busy London is as a whole. What a bustling city. People walk fast and with purpose. A few times we were ran into or bumped in a way that we'd almost expect an apology, but they just kept on going. I wouldn't consider it rude, but that it's just accepted that bumps and grazes occur in the goings on around the Tube and City streets. Almost everywhere we have gone there have been lots of people. I'm sure there are slower neighborhoods, but from what we've seen London is very busy. It feels faster than San Francisco and a lot more crowded. 

We arrived at Holborn and went upstairs following all signs toward the British Museum. It was a short walk from the tube station. The British Museum is FREE. How awesome is that? It's free to see all of these amazing artifacts and ancient discoveries. Some of the highlights of the day were seeing the Rosetta Stone, Mummies and the actual statues from the top portion of the Parthenon. Being in the presence of such old items with so much history is incredible. We put in a few hours of the museum and were ready to leave when we finally called it. We didn't even get through half of it. We did the Ancient Egypt exhibit, Ancient Greece, The Enlightenment exhibit and another one about life/death. Also, a lot of statues have their male parts knocked off. I got a pic of one that was still there to preserve it for eternity before someone takes a whack at it and breaks that one off too. 

British Museum

British Museum Inside

US

This is THE Rosetta Stone

The tiny thorn in the middle is supposedly from Jesus' Crown of Thorns. 

Swords

Deanna and a Sarcophagus 

Sarcophagus Cover

Marbles of Elgin from the Parthenon

Easter Island Head

Not THE Cleopatra

Cleopatra's Tomb

"Gebelein Man" found in Gebelein, Egypt, Predynastic period, around 3500 BC

Non broken Penis Statue. A rare find. 

After we left the museum we decided to go find a restaurant/pub that was named Princess Louise and recommended by someone to try. As we tried to make our way over there we got turned around a little here and there. 

One thing London does is put maps up here and there telling you how far you have to walk from where you are to the surrounding areas. This is very cool, but also confusing at times if you don't know that they are giving you the map with the perspective pointing in the way you are literally looking. It took me a couple maps to realize that. I usually expect a map to show North on top and then I work from there to go where I want. I don't know, it just got me slightly confused every time I went from looking at Google Maps to looking at those maps. 

We made it over to Princess Louise and went in for a pint of their Organic Ale that they had on tap. The food wasn't what we wanted at the moment, so we just had the drink and went on our way. 

Penny Farthing!

PINTS!

We walked in the direction of the River Thames and stopped here and there to view the menus of many places. The closer we got to the Theater district and the Royal Opera House we saw a huge increase in men in suits at pubs. Clearly happy hour was afoot. It was crazy to see how many guys in suits were all gathering at the pubs in that area. We hadn't really seen anyone that dressed up until today at happy hour. We walked down Newton Street, Drury Lane, Bow Street and saw lots of theatres and the Royal Opera House. 

Royal Opera House

The Library and Museum of Freemasonry

We stopped in at a pub called Marquess of Anglesey for drinks and food. Deanna ordered the chicken pie dish and wine. Her dish was pretty good but it was not a true pie. It was a chicken casserole type dish with a puff pastry on top. Kind of a let down since we were expecting a pie. I ordered fish and chips and a Peroni on draft. These fish and chips were a bit greasier than the last ones I had, but the mashed peas on this dish were actually better than the last. I was going to try the Steak and Ale pie, but I didn't want to try it at this place. I'll try it later at another pub I'm sure. A lot of pubs expect you to order any food and drinks when you come in at the bar, then go sit down. This does make it easier when you want to leave and don't get stuck waiting on your check. 

After we ate we walked down Wellington to the Strand and followed that over to Trafalgar square. What a busy scene that was with tons of people taking photos and milling about. There were two street performers doing the dumb floating trick in front of the National Gallery. One was Yoda and one was some sort of Skeletor knock off. We didn't hang out long because we are planning to hit this museum on Friday. 

National Gallery. More later!

We continued to wander along The Mall toward Buckingham Palace. It was very cool seeing the palace. We saw a couple of the Queen's Guard soldiers behind the fences and a few armed police with MP5 machine guns. The Guard used to stand out in front of the gates but were recently moved behind them to prevent lone wolf terrorist attacks on them. 

Victoria Memorial and Buckingham Palace

Gates to Buckingham Palace

Queen's Royal Guard

We were pretty wiped at this point so we got on the tube and headed back to Earls Court to our flat. I called for some Sushi Takeaway (That means 'to go' here) and went to grab that for a late night snack.

Tomorrow Brighton.


Our full photo album is located here
(Many more photos and we'll be posting on facebook in one large album later):
https://goo.gl/photos/rRMpDJXDXoF5QsS98