This has been the first day here in London. My family and I have had a lot of fun. The day started off with a flight from Værnes to Gatwick Airport. Originally my friend Sverre was also going to come along but sadly his grandfather died and he was going to his funeral tomorrow. So he has to take another flight tomorrow. We landed in Gatwick around noon, and from there we took the train to King’s Cross where we had booked our hotel rooms.
After we had got settled in our really “London’ish” hotel, we took the Tube down to the core of London. The London Underground has been in operation since 1863 and today it carries more than one billion passengers a year and makes three and a half million journeys each day, on 11 lines serving, 270 stations.
When we came out of the underground system we ended up in the middle of Oxford Street, in between a huge amount of people as far as the eye can see. Oxford Street is a major trough fare and a very popular shopping street for tourist and Londoners. From there we went down to Piccadilly Circus. I was kind of disappointed by it though, since I can’t get all the fuzz about that place. It’s basically just an open square with a few pretty big ads on some walls. But maybe that’s just me. Anyway, here we got tickets for a sightseeing bus. It was a hop on, hop off thingy which took us around in the whole city. We got to see a lot of historical and interesting places and buildings. I’m going to tell you about some of them here.
One of the first things we saw was the St Paul’s Cathedral. St Paul’s is the seat of the Bishop of London and is the fourth “version.” The cathedral is located on the highest point in the city of London, and with its 111 metres it’s an iconic part of the London skyline. The architect behind this masterpiece was Sir Christopher Wren. By the St Paul's Cathedral there was a huge flag. The flag of Great Britain. It is called the Union Jack and was adopted in 1801.
When the bus took us further around the city we saw something that in this last Millennium has become one of the most famous attractions in the city, The London Eye. This huge ferris wheel is 135 metres tall and was built with 32 egg-shaped capsules. From the top you can perceive up to 40 km of London around. The eye is the UK’s most popular paid for attraction with its 3.5 million visitors a year. All though the London Eye is very popular we did not visit it, mainly because of the insanely long queues.
After we felt we had seen enough of the city we hopped of the bus, seeking for a place to eat. We ended up on an Italian restaurant which I don't rembember the name of. The meal did not go as smoothly as we’d wish for, (the waitress seemed to have forgotten about or order, which lead to a fairly long wait) but the resupply was much needed. We then headed back to our hotel and got to where I’m sitting no. Now I’m going to watch an episode of “The Big Bang Theory” before I get some sleep.
Good night :)
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