London, Day 3 (Thursday)

Thursday morning we had grand plans to head to our local pub in the morning for a "full English" (big fried up breakfast) but we woke up late so we had to be satisfied with a sausage rolls and coffee from the pasty shop on the way to the tube. That was the first walk on the way to the tube, we had to do it twice because I forgot my tube pass the first time. My bad.



First stop of the day: The Tower of London, to revel in centuries of bloody history. Mmm my favorite kind! We attempted to join a tour group but after ten minutes of that, despite the entertaining Beefeater guide, we both remember that we don't like large groups of people and we dislike obnoxious tourists even more. Fortunately, those handy-dandy audio guides were available so we ditched the tour group, plugged in and put our headphones on, and off we went...through centuries of Norman invasion, medieval times, royal imprisonments and executions, even to the Jewel House. In the Jewel House you are moving-walkwayed (is that a word? I just made a new verb) past the crown jewels, which I always try really hard to be impressed by but have a hard time getting past how gaudy and tacky they look. Ah well. I guess I wouldn't be saying that if I were wearing the Koh-i-Noor on my annointed head.




After hours of walking around old cobbled roads inside the tower and dodging and tolerating other tourists, we were exhausted so we headed back to our neighborhood of Earl's Court, had a pub lunch, and ended up back in our hotel for an afternoon rest. (And uploading of photos, and checking emails, and planning of next adventures, a traveller's work is never done!)

On Thursday and Friday nights the British Museum is open late, till 8:30, so we took advantage of an opportunity to avoid the (although adorably-uniformed) noisy school groups and went in the evening. You could spend days and days in the British Museum seeing all of the treasures from looting and nearly every continent, but we hit my favorite highlights: The Assyrian room, the Egyptian mummies and artifacts, Greek and Roman sculptures, and Egyptian sculptures.



And finally, as the sun set over Bloomsbury, we (more exactly, our exhausted feet) were ready to call it a day. I was thrilled to see the shining beacon of Pret-a-Manger across from the tube station, so we grabbed some takeaway sandwiches and settled back in to our hotel room.