The second and largest segment of our England adventures took place in London. It consisted of sight-seeing, drinking, family-seeing, drinking, sleeping, drinking, a little bit of eating, and more drinking. Evidence (only SOME) of said shenanigans below.
Miles walked: 26
Miles transported: ~200
Being Tourists
Of course, any tourist activity in London must begin with… HARRY POTTER (at King’s Cross Station)!
And this is the ACTUAL platform 9 and ¾ (as in, where they filmed the movies)!
The entire package was consumed before we even got off the train. The vomit flavor, unfortunately, actually tasted like vomit. I was very impressed.
Tower Bridge! Most people mistake this as London Bridge (apparently, even Londoners do!). Wait until you see the actual London Bridge…
Fully immersed in the Tour de France:
The Walkie-Talkie on the left, The Gherkin on the right, and The HMS Belfast on the water:
And now… *drumroll please*…. I present to you…. LONDON BRIDGE!!! I swear, it’s true… it even says so on it, in case you don’t believe me.
Millennium Bridge, also famous for its appearance (or rather, destruction) in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:
An adorable little girl playing on a London “beach”:
Looks comfy:
This:
And then we stumbled upon this amazing street performer (there were DOZENS all along the river, but we only stopped for her!). Her name is Charlotte Campbell and she blew our minds. Check out her music on her website.
We even asked her for a photo and autograph (because she is obviously going to become famous and these will be worth millions one day, in dollars and in bragging rights):
Now, before I continue with the oh-so riveting account of our touristic activities in London, I’d like to tell you a story… when we came home that evening, we told my cousin (Alex) all about our day, what we did, etc. We told him we saw an awesome street performer and I pulled up her website and played some songs. The songs sounded familiar to him and turns out, he had just seen Charlotte play at a TINY music festival the week before and she is apparently a friend of a good friend of Roxanne’s (who they had all gone to see perform at the festival)! We figured since this was apparently such a small world, we’d send Charlotte an e-mail to see if she’d like to come meet us for a drink. Keep reading to find out if she did or didn’t!!! (the answer is pretty obvious given my level of excitement and the fact that I didn’t just say “she never responded :(”, but humor me nonetheless)
Anyway, I digress. Let’s get back to the matter at hand. Where were we? Ah, yes. Big Ben:
After a million attempts at taking a selfie and failing, a kind Samaritan offered to assist us:
This turtle has absolutely no sense of direction:
Hanging with Mandela:
And Samsonite, naturally, took to Gandhi:
Samsonite had a very important phone call to make (to whom? We don’t know. We don’t ask him these things.):
After a full day of calorie burning, he definitely deserved this traditional English treat:
And we deserved this liquid-caloric treat and a fun night out with Alex and Lou:
Monopoly Pub Crawl
As we have already bombarded you guys plenty on Facebook with pictures from the Monopoly Pub Crawl (which, we completed ALMOST successfully, might I add!), we will not re-enact the entire day on this blog. Instead, we will only provide the highlights, such as, taking the bus:
And taking group photos:
And taking the Underground:
And representing Stone Brewery with pride (if anyone from Stone ever reads this, we wouldn’t mind a reward for the free publicity you received… ahem, ahem):
And…
… ta da!! If you have patiently read the copious amount of writing I have included in this post, then you will now learn the answer to the question posed above that has been mulling around in your brain this entire time (probably less than 3 minutes, and that’s if you read as slowly as I do…) – Charlotte came to meet us!! It was awesome hanging out with you, Charlotte! We can’t wait until you get famous and then we’ll forever have this proof that you hung out with us simple folk. Don’t forget us!!
The gang, in full (and somehow we picked up two police officers on the way…?):
Resume well earned:
More Londoning
More family!! Met up with Nicole (2nd cousin) and her husband Alex at an awesome restaurant near Camden Market. It was LOVELY seeing you guys! Thank you again for coming out to meet us and for a fantastic dinner. Can’t wait to see you guys again when we’re back in London (hopefully for much Longer…!).
Samsonite’s last English breakfast, for a while at least. If you were ever wondering what a devastated stuffed turtle looks like, here you go:
Samsonite's Great Adventures 