I'm in London!

Greetings readers! Well, here I sit in my hostel in London. Finally! We arrived here at 7:30 this morning after a long and restless flight, first from Calgary, then from Houston. We took the Underground (or the tube), from Heathrow to our hostel after first purchasing out Oyster cards at the station at Heathrow. We're not sure if they really get us a better discount or not, but it's a lot easier having a prepaid card than having to worry about exact change for fares all the time.

I first must apologize for the briefness of this post, as the internet at the hostel is not complimentary and parting with 4 pounds for an hour of internet wasn't very pleasing. So I promise to include pictures in later posts when we get to a place that has free WiFi.

Our first stop after the hostel and a shower (14 hours worth of planes leaves one feeling dirty and cranky), was St. Paul's Cathedral, which is all of 2 blocks from the hostel. It's an amazing building with tons of ornate carvings, statues, and paintings. I have no pictures of the inside of the cathedral because you aren't allowed to take pictures inside. Though many people were blatantly ignoring this, April and I followed the rules like good Canadians. We also climbed around 300 stairs in some very sketchy stairwells to get to the very top. Totally worth it! The view of London from the top was amazing.

After the cathedral we pretty much just wandered around for a while. So far we've seen the outside of Big Ben, the Parliament \buildings, the London Eye, the Tower Bridge, the Court House, and a ton of other ornate buildings of varying importance. London is an amazing city with a lot of history so far. We also walked for quite a ways along the Thames, which was pretty cool. We're still adjusting to the cars driving on the opposite side of the road, because it effects which direction you look to see if it's safe to cross the street. I never thought of that before, but it does.

It's been a long day so I'm going to call it a night. I promise more detailed blogs later in the trip when the internet is cheaper and I've got a little more time to write.

Oh, and Todd is having a lovely time.