Day 3 - 2 August 2014

I woke up early, as I usually do, and met my Dad and his family for breakfast at 7.30 a.m.
Quite a decent breakfast too, I have to say. Several (most?) hotels don't include breakfast at all, and even though this wasn't extravagant at all, it was quite good enough! Toast, cereal, juice, boiled eggs and tea/coffee.
After breakfast we went out for a little while, I discovered it rained! *gasp* After the heatwave we had it was quite a surprise and I was a bit concerned about my plans as I had intended to go to London Zoo to be there when they opened at 10 ... not that much fun going to the zoo in the rain! It didn't rain a great deal, so I decided to go up to London Zoo and see what happened, hopefully the rain would subside a bit.

I walked to Bayswater Road and I even though I didn't get really wet, I did need a sweater and it wasn't the greatest weather. Took a bus and it takes a little while to get to the Zoo - and when I got there the rain had stopped! Yay!
I was early, I arrived there at 9, but it was kind of deliberate, as I had hoped I'd be able to explore Regent's Park and maybe Primrose Hill before the Zoo opened. I started at Primrose Hill, which at first didn't look very exciting. Mostly various paths with lots of grass (mostly dried out) and some trees ... but when I got to a map of the park I realized they had Viewing Point (and subconsciously I think I must have known this and that was why I wanted to check out Primrose Hill!), so I decided to go there.
It was actually quite steep, but boy what a view!! It was absolutely amazing - you are a fair bit north at Primrose Hill and high enough to see through London down to the Thames, with the amazing skyline, including The Shard and London Eye! Quite stunning!

(And since I got home I started watching The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, based on the books by Elizabeth George, and in one episode - have forgotten the name now, sorry - Thomas Lynley is sad and upset and actually sits on a bench at Primrose Hill, joined later by Havers. The coolest thing: the skyline didn't look the same! I guess the episode is old enough for there to be no Shard and no London Eye *lol*)

I tried to walk a bit in Regent's Park too, but it was kind of dull, I think I came in at the most boring place in the park, mostly a large road with some benches and that was it. I knew I had a lot of walking to do that day, so I ended up taking a bit of a rest at a bench for a while, waiting for the Zoo to open.

At 10 a.m. I started walking toward the London Zoo Entrance, but stumbled across a Fast Track Entry straight away, and since I had my London Pass I just went in there, they scanned my card and that was it! :)
Spent an incredible time at the Zoo - I do love watching animals but I feel something special about London Zoo actually.

Highlights this time was the tigers of course - I do love tigers and I didn't get to see them last time as they had been temporarily moved while they were building the new Tiger Territory. Well, now they were back, and the two adult beautiful stunning tigers, Jae Jae and Melati became parents on 3 February 2014, to three gorgeous tiger cubs, named Cinta, Nakal and Budi! :)
Unfortunately the tiger cubs were still shy and hid mostly in the bamboo bushes ... but I did see Jae Jae! :) There were to be a Tiger Talk and noon so I decided to catch that.

Walked around a lot, saw a lot! Saw kangaroos this time (not last time) which was really cool - and had the funniest experiences with monkeys. They have this special little monkey habitat with a few extra doors, where visitors actually walk in to the monkeys without any fences or bars or glass or anything. They're tiny monkeys of course, but it was still quite amazing. While I was walking around taking photos I suddenly heard a bit of commotion ahead of me.
When I got there it turned out one of the monkeys had stolen a lady's camera case and climbed up on a rope over the path, and sat up there playing with it. The keepers tried to get it down, no success, and the monkey was having a blast! Eventually another monkey saw how much fun he was having and came to play, but the first monkey didn't want to give up the camera case, after all: he found it!! :) They fought over it in the most amazing way, up on that rope - but in the end the camera case fell to the ground and was returned to the lady ... and the monkeys set off chasing each other! :) :)

Checked out the penguins for a while before heading back to Tiger Territory for the Tiger Talk. Yeah, right! Here's a hint, if you are thinking of joining that, at noon, on a Saturday, in the middle of summer: GET THERE EARLY! I could hardly get near the tiger habitat, not to mention the area where the Tiger Talk took place - it was absolutely crowded!!! I felt a bit bummed out about that, tigers are my thing - but there was nothing I could do.
Went for a little while longer and of course had to go to the Zoo shop. Saw THE most amazing tiger - I WANT IT ... but it was huge (no way it would fit in my luggage) ... and it cost £40 ... oops!! Bought a little tiger instead and I now have three ...
A rather large tiger, that I bought at London Zoo in 2012 - he is Jae Jae.
A middle-sized tiger, that I bought at Borås Zoo in 2013 - she is Melati.
And now, this gorgeous little tiger cub bought at London Zoo - he is Budi, the youngest of the cubs! :)
(Will have to take pictures and post when I get the time!!)

After London Zoo again came the time management problem! :) I figured I should get something to eat, and I wanted to do something more on the London Pass, as it was the last day, and I was going to see Phantom of the Opera that night, which meant I had to be at Her Majesty's Theatre at 7 p.m., at the latest, and I had to go back to the hotel and shower and change before that ...
Long story short ...

I took the bus from London Zoo to Camden Town (this really cool old man started talking to me at the bus stop, people in London are really talkative and friendly, very different from Sweden!!) - and that was a really cool place! Like a little town inside London almost - would be fun to go there and explore a bit more!
I changed buses there and took a bus to Trafalgar Square, as I figured I could make a short food stop at McDonald's near Charring Cross Station. Well, there was this huge festival going on at Trafalgar Square, meaning that a meal at McDonald's would have taken a LONG time.
I skipped that and took a bus to the Tower of London, and decided to go on the CityCruises, which is also included in the London Pass.
I hadn't planned things very well, but if I ever buy the London Pass again, this is definitely something I want to use more. You get a ticket called the Red Rover River Ticket or something like that, and it basically works as a HopOn-HopOff ticket for an entire day. So you can go between Greenwich Pier, Tower Pier and Westminster Pier as many times as you like for one day (and trust me, going form the Tower of London to Westminster on the Tames takes about 1/3 of the time it takes by bus!!!)!!

Well, for now I took the boat from Tower Pier to Westminster Pier and it was SO cool! Seeing everything from the Thames gave it an entirely different perspective and we had this really nice, sort of unofficial, guide telling us lots of wonderful facts. Unfortunately you tend to forget a lot of them, which is very sad ... but I enjoyed the tour immensely. We had a bit of luck to, when we got to Westminster. We were a few minutes early as we were going with the tide, and due to an unusually high tide, the water under Westminster Bridge was quite high. Normally the boat turns around at the east side of the bridge and docks, but we were lucky enough to go under Westminster Bridge and the turned the boat around just outside the Houses of Parliament - quite a stunning experience actually!! :)

I knew I really really should get something to eat at this point, since I hadn't eaten since breakfast, but since I had a hard time knowing travel times I did feel stressed out by the fact that I had to be at the theatre no later than 7 p.m. - so I took a bus ...that I thought was going all the way to Paddington (bus 159 on the bus map is said to go all the way to Paddington but I think they've changed it because all the 159s I've seen have ended at Marble Arch) - but had to change buses at Marble Arch.
I was really really tired when I got to the hotel, but didn't feel like I had a lot of time to relax so I took a shower and freshened up a bit, and then took a walk to Edgeware Road where I found a convenient McDonald's ... and had my first meal since breakfast - at 7.30 a.m. - at 5.30p.m. Yikes! Maybe not so great, but I guess I don't mind that mind when it's not all the time.

That gave me plenty of time, or so I thought. Turned out the buses was absolutely impossible, it took FOREVER to go even a few meters. In the end it took about one hour to go from Edgeware Road to Haymarket - that's insane!!!

I arrived at Her Majesty's Theatre at about 6.45 but they had already opened, and I collected my ticket at once.
So I'm going to start up my musical blog soon (would like to finish up with the London blog first though!), and details regarding the shows and the performers will end up there instead of here. However, if there is something special I would like to say about a show, I will add it here ... :)

The main reason I wanted to see Phantom of the Opera again was actually Gerónimo Rauch! I saw him in 2012 as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables and he was amazing - and in 2012 the Phantom-show wasn't that great. I was however a bit nervous that Rauch wasn't going to be there, after all, you never can be quite sure when you're booking so far in advance. I checked the board as soon as I stepped into the theatre and to my delight, Rauch was listed as the Phantom. And what can I say? If he was amazing as Jean Valjean he was absolutely brilliant as the Phantom!!
To me he embodied the character completely, and managed to not only portray him as an insane maniac (to me the character is SO much more complex!!) which was fantastic!! Truly my favourite Phantom EVER!!

At the end of the show, after the curtain call, Andy Hockley - who played Monsieur Firmin, stepped forward. He announced the annual football game between the casts of Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables, what's known as "Les Mis Vs Phantom" - it's been playing for a few years now, supporting charities, and Mr. Hockley told us that the game this year would be played in honour of one of its founders, Melanie Oakley-Dow, who tragically passed away last Christmas.
The game was taking place the following day, Sunday 3 August - and I was absolutely bummed about not having checked it out - it would have been THE most amazing thing to be able to attend it!! :)
However, Mr. Hockley continued to say that since he knew not everyone at the theatre would be able to go to the game, some of the cast had gone from the stage and were collecting voluntary donantions when we left the theatre. I think it was an amazing initiative and when we headed out I started going through my purse for some money to donate. When I got to the door, Martin Ball - who played Monsieur André - was standing there. I sort of came from the wrong direction but managed to push my way through a number of people and put my donation in his little bucket - and I got eye contact, a great smile and a friendly "Thank You!!" from him! :)
Things like that just makes my day! :)

I was a little bit worried about going back to the hotel on my own as it ended kind of late, around 10.20 p.m., but it turned out I didn't have to worry at all. What I hadn't thought about was the fact that in a great city like London, in the middle of summer, the streets are hardly deserted at half past ten on a Saturday! :) Also, I knew my Dad and his family were at the hotel IF something went wrong. There were some construction work going on so I had to walk to Picadilly Circus to take the bus, but it worked out great and I was back in my Tower Room at the hotel in no time! :)

Day 2 - 1 August 2014

First real day in London - yay! :)

We had a really nice tradition going during the entire trip, where I always met my Dad and his family in the breakfast room for breakfast every morning. It opened at 7.30 a.m., and even though I basically tried to leave my room at 7.29 or 7.30 every morning, they always beat me to it, and were there before me! *lol*

Anyway, I really liked that tradition, it was a great way of meeting, we could discuss what we had done the day before or what we were going to do on that day - and we started this tradition already the first day.
My plan was to use the London Pass during the first two real days in London, Friday (1 August) and Saturday (2 August). My Dad and his family had bought tickets to go to the Tower Bridge Exhibition from home, and even though I went there in 2012 it was really great, so I figured I'd do it again this year (since it didn't cost me anything, as it is included in the London Pass) and we could do this activity together.

We ended up deciding to go there first of all, do it together, and afterwards split up - and so we did.
Since we were done with breakfast around eight, and Tower Bridge Exhibition didn't open until ten, I figured we had time to do something else first, but I underestimated a number of things. First of all, during this trip I learned (which is obvious really, I know!) that it takes a lot longer for four people, including two children to "get ready" for a day a out, than it does for one adult! *lol* I also totally underestimated travel times, constantly, during the entire trip!!
We were there in the middle of summer and vacation and there were SO MUCH PEOPLE everywhere, which meant going anywhere by bus took a loooong time (nope, still not brave enough to try the underground *lol*)!

In the end we went straight from the hotel to Tower Bridge, had to change buses at St. Paul's, and the exhibition had opened when we got there!

Again, a great experience, I can really recommend it!! This time a bit different though - well, security checks first, which is quite common these days, and as usual it took a little while for the four of them, and their rather large backpack to go through, then I walked up, opened my bag and they sent me through! *lol*
The last time I was there we took an elevator up to the North Tower ... this time we walked!!!! In pretty much extreme heat ... Yeah, that was tough!! Okay, Tower Bridge is no London Eye or The Shard but when your walking up staircase after staircase and it's like 33 degrees Celsius, it sure feels high enough! :) When you get to the "top" of the North Tower (well, not technically the top, but as far as you're allowed to go) they show a pretty cool movie about how the bridge came about - quite educational, but a little difficult to explain and translate to the children. I think the younger accepted she wouldn't understand so much and didn't care a lot, but the older one is right now very inquisitive and quite upset about not understanding English (she's taken some in school already but not enough to follow conversations), so her mother tried to explain as much as possible to her.

After the movie you get to walk through the East Walkway to the South Tower, then through the West Walkway (but unfortunately you can't get through there, so you have to walk back the way you came to the North Tower again). It's really cool to be walking so high, pretty much inside and over Tower Bridge, and the view over the Thames is fantastic. They also have a lot of informative exhibitions in the walkways where you can read about a lot of different bridges, about Tower Bridge, this time they had this really cool 1960s exhibition on, where they mentioned my hero, Sean Connery! :)

When you're back in the North Tower you head down, and then follow painted arrows and signs to the Engine Rooms, you actually walk underneath the South Tower to where the actually engine rooms where that lifted the bridge. I don't understand much of the technical stuff but it's really cool to see it! :)

When we were done at Tower Bridge Exhibition we had a bit of a break and some water just outside, and then decided to split up.
The others wanted to check out London Eye, so I had a tip about a really nice bus, RV1, which departs from Tower Hill Gateway, goes across Tower Bridge and on the south side of the Thames all the way to London Eye, then goes over the Waterloo Bridge and ends at Aldwych, so the four of them set off in search of a bus stop.
I walked around Tower Bridge for a while and took a lot of photos (guess nobody is surprised about that!), and then went over to the Tower of London (and had to change my memory card on the way *lol*).
The London Pass is truly great, I could just walk passed all the ticket booths and all the queues and head straight for the entrance, a lady scanned my card and I was in. Amazing! :)

They have this absolutely fantastic installation going on at the Tower right now, which is called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red - The Tower remembers the First World War. This is what it says on the plaque describing it:

Teams of volunteers are installing 888,246 handmade ceramic poppies in the Tower moat. Each marks the death of a member of the British Forces in the First World War.

For more information on the project and how to volunteer, please visit hrp.org.uk
#Tower Poppies

It is just amazing the way the British care and about and respect their history!!

I had arrived just as a beefeater guide started a tour so I joined in back - and it was quite fun. The information on these tours are a bit too detailed for someone who is not that great at British History, but the beefeater, Billy Beefeater he was called, was hilarious and made the tour really nice and funny!!

I really couldn't go in anywhere as the lines were enormous!!!!!!!! Again, a loooot of people in London this time of year. The queues to see the Crown Jewels were almost unbelievable. They had these usual ropes out, forming lines covering almost half the entire courtyard outside the house hosting the Crown Jewels. All that space was crammed with people standing in line, and the queue even continued several hundred meters after the ropes ended.
It wasn't that bad at other places, but still bad enough.

Despite that I had a really good time, I haven't been to The Tower since I visited it with Annika and it was great to just be able to walk around in my own pace, taking photographs and just taking in the atmosphere and the history that surrounds the place.

The Tower Bridge Exhibition and the Tower of London were really great activities and everything worked out fine, after that however, things started to go not-quite-so-well ...
I had a hard time, during the entire trip but I think it was most evident on this day, to work out how long travelling would take, when I needed to get food, when I needed to get water etc., and that sometimes threw a spanner in the wheels for me.
As it was I was done at The Tower around 2 p.m. - and all I had to eat and drink since breakfast (at 7.30 a.m.) was a small cup of water and a small bun, and it was sunshine and around 30 degrees out ... not good!!
 I was also unsure about what to do during the afternoon, I wanted to make use of my London Pass but hadn't really planned anything specific, time went by fast, I didn't know where I was going, I was really hungry and needed something to drink really bad ...

I have this favourite London McDonald's which is up at Marble Arch, they have this really large seating area downstairs and even when there's a lot of people it's usually feels pretty calm there, they have nice bathrooms etc. - I felt I needed some peace and quite, and food and drink, so I made my way up to Marble Arch ... which took quite a while!!!
Did get food and drink, and peace and quiet, and were able to think - which was very necessary!!

I wanted to visit the London Transport Museum (which was also included in London Pass), but when I started checking I was unsure if I'd really have the time. It was almost 3.30 p.m. and I hadn't quite finished my food, and the London Transport Museum is down by Covent Garden ... It didn't close until 6 p.m., but I don't see the point in getting there half an hour before they close and have to rush through it all ... I debated a lot with myself and didn't quite know what to do, but in the end I felt I didn't have it in me to stress, I don't do well when I have to stress, so instead I took a really long nice walk in Hyde Park, and crossed over into Kensington Gardens!

I entered Hyde Park a bit down Park Lane and came about this amazing monument, this one a tribute to animals killed in wars. The main text read THEY HAD NO CHOICE.
I was indeed very moved by this - not many people care to remember animals and certainly to to the extent of giving them their own memorial monument. Impressive!

The walk in the parks was really nice, even though I was quite tired and I got a tiny little bit of rain at one point - but I just love the London parks, they are amazing!!!

I ended up at the hotel a little earlier than expected due to the miscalculations in the afternoon, but I know these things happen and you can't stress yourself out about it. You can't make the right choices all the time and not everything will go according to plan - and despite the afternoon, I had a really really great first whole day in London! :)