26 Hours in London

In order to get to Genova, Italy (which seems to be a smaller airport) I took two flights: a red eye to London and a 9:30am flight to Genova 26 hours after I landed. These were my first international flights!! I didn't get too much sleep on the flights but I wasn't too tired.

I stayed at a $12 hostel in London that I booked a couple minutes before I hopped onto my flight in Boston. There were about six beds (stacked three high) crammed into a room smaller than the size of my single at MIT. It was a little more cramped than a fraternity house but much cleaner so it was really all I needed for the night. The Queen Elizabeth Fulham hostel was located right above the Queen Elizabeth pub, though I didn't get a beer since I was trying to make it on the 40 pounds I had withdrawn (1.6 dollars = 1 pound). Half the people sitting around seemed like they were staying in the hostel and using the wifi that was available in the bar and half seemed to be locals watching a soccer game on the television.

I struck out into London for about five hours. You can buy a Travelcard that gives you unlimited access to the Tube (subway) , trains, and buses. I didn't have much time to plan out what I was going to do since I was rushing to pack everything before my trip so I used the 'London Citypack' book that Jim and Barbara had sent me off with, so it was very useful.

I made my way to Westminster Abbey on the Tube but ran into Big Ben right when I exited! It was tall and close to the Ferris wheel that is always shown on the Thames River in the shots of London. I pretty much took one picture of Big Ben just to turn around and take a picture of the water.

Afterwards I made the short walk to Westminster Abbey. Some couple took a picture for me and I took a picture of them. They made sure to get almost all of me in the picture and I made sure to not cutoff the top of the building so we had differing views of what was important to get. I missed the hours for actually going inside the church, but I was able to walk around some of the other parts of it nearby. There were some pretty nice arches and stuff around. 

All the streets did look like they belonged in London. There weren't very different from those in Boston though. 

I made my way to St. James Park. I think I was trying to get somewhere else this time again too, but I just went with it. There was a

Nearby was Buckingham Palace, down a long street lined with flags. This was as close as I could get. There were doing construction of some bleachers (for the Olympics?), so I wasn't sure if people could normally get a better look. 

This was at the other end of the street, it didn't have a specific name but it looked regal. 

Finally, I made my way to Covent Garden, which was the London equivalent of Quincy Market and Faneuil (in Boston). There were performers around, one of which was a string sextet that was pretty good. 

After the long walk, I made my way back to the hostel to sleep early since I was dead tired.  Getting to Stansted airport in the morning was an ordeal since it was an early flight, the charter bus I had to catch there had limited stop times at that hour,  it was raining, and the public bus that I needed to catch had been rerouted with a detour, but I eventually figured it out.