Day 4: 3 August 2014

As usual, I had breakfast with my Dad and his family, and after breakfast I wanted to go to Regent's Park. I have always wanted to go there, and the day before I had the distinct feeling the north-east corner of the park wasn't the most interesting, instead I wanted to start in the south-east corner.
I try to find different buses when I'm going places in London, as the busride is part of the sightseeing and experience in London - so I planned to take a bus from Bayswater Road to Victoria Station (148?) and then another bus from Victoria Station to Regent's Park (C2).

All went well - to start with. What I didn't know was the fact that there were massive construction works going on around Victoria Station, so when I got off the bus I was completely confused, I didn't even see anything that looked like a station ...
To make a long story short, I ended up walking around for about half an hour around Victoria station to first of all, actually find the station, and second, try to figure out from where my bus was departing! :) Finally I got on the right bus and I got off at the right place - so I say Bravo for me!

The south east corner of Regent's Park was AMAZING! I highly recommend a visit - and I will try to go back, as I didn't have as much time as I would have needed to explore it properly!
The nature was absolutely beautiful and they had these extraordinary rose gardens - due to the almost extreme heatwave they had almost started to wither, but it was an amazing walk!
I then found a bus that went straight from the south end of Regent's Park to Paddington, bus 205 - definitely going to remember that (also, it happens to go all the way to Liverpool Street Station, cool!).

I went back to the hotel to shower and change - as always it was difficult with the timing, and I came to the hotel earlier than planned, and realized that hadn't cleaned my room yet. Showered and changed in record time (didn't much feel like being the shower when the cleaning crew came!) and took a bus to Marble Arch, where I had lunch and was able to take it easy for a while.

I then went down to Aldwych and quickly found Lyceum Theatre, where The Lion King is playing. It was however, very early! I was supposed to pick up my tickets around 2 p.m. and it was before 1 when I got there. I ended up walking around the area, and for the first time really discovered Covent Garden! It was a bit too crowded and loud for my liking but it was really nice to have seen it! Also found a Disney Store there - which is always nice! :)
I ended up picking up my tickets early but the theatre was already opened. They had a dangerous souvenir shop there, but everything is extremely expensive. I went into the theatre and found my place as soon as they opened, and I have to say, I wonder how much money they make during one performance ... The tickets are expensive, yes definitely! I bought a programme and a souvenir brochure, which was £14 (more expensive than The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables) - and they sold SO much stuff. Not only food and drinks but dvd:s and records and stuffed animals - tiny little stuffed animals (that were SOOO cool) cost £15 - and you could easily see five kids buying them together ...

Anyway, a proper review of the musical will come in my musical blog, eventually - but I have to make a few comments. First of all, I hadn't realized it followed the movie as closely as it did. But it was basically word-for-word the same (yup, I know the movie! *lol*).
Also, it was extremely spectacular! The scenery, the costumes - it was absolutely astonishing! Not every musical you go to has an elephant coming down through the audience and jumping up on stage, inside the theatre, right?! :)

After the musical I went back to the hotel where I met my Dad and his family. We went for a walk in the area around the hotel and a little bit into Kensington Gardens, which was quite nice. I sometime find it difficult when I spend tooo much time with them, but catching up like this every now and again was really great!

Day 5 - September 28

Another morning when I didn't feel the best ... it took me a while to get going, but eventually I managed to get down to breakfast and head out.
Took a bus from Praed Street to St. Paul's Cathedral, and that's when things started to just feel wrong. I won't go into details, don't feel like being to personal here, but it just didn't work out....

Ended up going down to the Thames and check out the Millennium bridge instead which was really nice! However, I didn't feel well and fought with myself about what I was going to do.
Eventually, I ended up (sort of) following my original plan for the day and took a bus to Tower Hill. While I had originally thought of going to the Tower, I felt time was going by and after all, I have been to the Tower twice now.
I would like to go back, don't get me wrong there, but 1) I'd like to have a lot of time to spare, and 2) I'd like to have read up more on English history first! :-)

I ended up walking outside the Tower instead and headed for Tower Bridge. That is one really truly impressive building when you get close! Wow!!

I went on the 'Tower Bridge Exhibition' and that was quite an experience! I'm glad the morning's issues hadn't stopped me from going on this!
We were sent by elevator to the top of the North Tower where we viewed an introductory film, with the 'creator' and the 'architect' of Tower Bridge. I had basically no knowledge at all of the bridge's history so this was very very interesting.
After the film we were allowed to walk, and photograph, the East and West Walkway, the tiny little walkways on top of Tower Bridge - you can clearly see them when you see pictures of the bridge, but I hadn't quite expected myself to be walking up there! :-)
It was a really fantastic experience, though the walkways are quite closed in so you don't have a perfect view over London! Still, quite amazing and very impressive.
After having walked through there (for as long as you wanted) you took the stairs down - and I just have to mention the 'inside' of the North Tower. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos there (not sure if we were allowed!) but the inside was amazing - it looked really old-fashioned, like the stairs and the interior had been preserved from when the bridge was designed!
When we got down a few floors they had a minor 'store' where you could buy souvenirs. We had been photographed against a green screen upon arriving, and you could buy pictures of yourself (or fridge magnets, or coffee cups or other stuff) with Tower Bridge in the background. I'm normally not one that would do that, but since I was on my own and basically didn't have any pictures of me at all, I thought it would be a cool thing to do. Until I realized the prices! Okay, granted, I knew it would be expensive but this was almost ridiculous!! I looked for the smallest and cheapest thing - after all, I'm not that fond of seeing myself in pictures ... the smallest and cheapest things they had was a fridge magnet, about 2x3 cm (what is that? 4x6"??) - it cost .... *drumroll* £10!!!!!!! It's like 115 SEK ... €12.50 ... $16.20. Whoa - no way I was going to pay that!!
From this 'store', or desk, we were taken by elevator to street level, and told to follow the blue markings on the street to get to the 'Engine Room'. Said and done.
That was COOL!! I'm not at all technological, and there was no way I would understand how hydraulic power was transferred into mechanic power to lift and lower to bascules ... (?) - but it was still quite amazing.
At the end of the exhibition they had this really cool model of the bridge where you yourself could raise and lower the bascules for a boat coming through! :-)
I checked the souvenir shop at the end of the tour and ended up buying a really cool handbag! :-)

I took loads and loads of photos both before, during and after the exhibition - of course! :-)

I had originally thought of going on the Thames River Boat Cruise, from Tower Pier to Westminster Pier, but it was really cold and quite windy, and I saw the boats and the pier from Tower Bridge and it was crowded! In the end I decided to take this really cool bus, RV1, from Tower Gateway to Westminster. My Mum and I went on it in 2004, it starts from Tower Gateway, goes across Tower Bridge *cool!*, along the river (sort of) on the south shore, around London Eye, and across the river at Westminster Bridge (where I planned to get off) - and continues to Aldwych and Covent Garden.

I walked up to Tower Gateway and found the bus ... and apparently they had changed the bus routes since 2004 *lol* - not that surprising I guess ..:)
Instead of going across Tower Bridge, the bus went across London Bridge, at first I was a bit disappointed - I like Tower Bridge - but then I thought, I have already seen Tower Bridge up close, how cool I get to see London Bridge as well! :-)
 Then it turned out the bus didn't go over Westminster Bridge at all, but instead over Waterloo Bridge. It did cause some problems for my planning, but it was cool to go over Waterloo Bridge and you had an amazing view over London Eye and Houses of Parliament and Big Ben! :-)

I got off the bus at Aldwych where I had to walk for a while, but was lucky enough to find a bus that would take me straight to Parliament Square ... where I went to Westminster Abbey. Had a bit of an issue there initially as well (sort of) but it worked itself out in an amazing way in the end! :-)
Went on the audio tour - which was guided by Jeremy Irons, cool!!!! :-)
I learned a lot though I was quite tired and it was starting to get late, so I did skip a few steps of the tour. But I must say the church is impressive to say the least.
I am in no way a believer, I have broken most of the ties I might have had with the church, but being in the place like this really is moving. Even though I don't have a faith of my own doesn't mean I don't respect those who have ...

I took a bus from Victoria Street to Marble Arch where I had something to eat, took another bus to Queensway and walked around a bit, bought some water and snacks before heading back to the hotel - and managed to organize most of my packing! :-)