London so far

I had quite an interesting first night and day in London. My flight last night was delayed an hour and half so we took off at the time that we were supposed to be landing. I didn't end up getting to Gatwick til about 10 pm, so I had missed my bus to London (which left at 9:45). I took a bus to transfer to the north terminal where the bus to London leaves from, and got my ticket changed to the next bus, which left at 10:45. That bus ride was about an hour and 15 minutes long so I got to the city around midnight, and I was really worried that the trains would stop running before I could get to my destination. I got on the tube and did one transfer, then miraculously got to my next train 2 minutes before it was supposed to leave, and it was the last one of the night. I would have had to call a cab if I had missed that train so that was really lucky.

This morning Alex and I walked around. First we went to the Burough Market, a big indoor/outdoor market with lots of food stalls. Then we walked along the river a bit to the Globe Theater, Millennium Bridge (the bridge that got destroyed by dementors in one of the Harry Potter movies...), and across the river to the main sites. We walked to Trafalgar Square and ran into the Portrait Gallery just to find the famous painting of Shakespeare, which was very easily found. On our way to Buckingham Palace we saw the Horse Guards Parade Grounds. The horses were just standing there but there were a lot of them and I thought it looked cool. Then after crossing through St. James's Park we arrived at Buckingham Palace. We were there just before the changing of the guard was going to start so we decided to wait and see it, but then we changed our minds because I've already seen it and Alex can go back a different day.

We had a little over half an hour to find the departure point for our trip to Stonehenge and we thought that would be plenty of time, but we could not find it. It was pretty terrible. We were on the right street but the description of the place where we were supposed to go wasn't very good so we were really confused. We speed-walked up and down Victoria Street trying to find this bus but we just couldn't find it. It got to 12:30 (when we were supposed to get picked up), and we had just about given up when the bus pulled up right in front of us. We were relieved.

2 hours, some rain, some hail, and some snow later, we arrived to beautiful weather at Stonehenge. It was freezing but there was a clear blue sky which we definitely did not think would happen. It was way cooler than I thought it would be; it's just very impressive. We did the audio guides so that was good to get some information on it. The bus left about an hour and a half later, and we arrived back in London at about 6:30.

We were going to meet Eva for dinner but she was going out so we went to a really cheap pub for food, walked around a little more, then split up for the night, so now I'm back in Eva's room.

Tomorrow I think we're all going to St. Paul's Cathedral, then a free 3-hour walking tour (like the one I did in Edinburgh). Alex and Eva are going to a football match that I couldn't get a ticket to tomorrow afternoon so I'm going to go to the British Museum to check that out. Sunday is church at All Soul's, Hyde Park (and Speaker's Corner), the Tower of London, and whatever else we have time for. I'll probably go to Westminster Abby and maybe another museum Monday morning before I leave.

Pictures coming when I get back!