Clovers, and Castles, and Beer, oh my!: 10.30.2013 'Ello, London!

Part 1 of London (aka, everything in Central London) is over, and I'm now in Part 2 (chilling in East London with my cousin Megan). So I'll go ahead and cover everything that I did since I arrived... or most of it anyway. There's a lot.

The first two days were basically been a whirlwind of walking and sightseeing. On Tuesday Sarah and I we walked 13 miles! (The second day we bought tube passes and took it easy: only walked 6 haha)

If you saw my Instagram post from the other day, you know that Sarah and I oriented our entire walking tour around Harry Potter filming locations, based on this website: http://www.empireonline.com/features/harry-potter-travel-guide/ (Skip to further down the blog if you don't care about HP [lame] and just want to see London)

Here's a map of how far we walked in our determination to see as many Harry-Potter-related things as possible:

The extra three miles were added when we went out again later in the day for drinks in Covent Garden.

Picadilly Circus - This is where the trip apparates to in the final movie after narrowly escaping Death Eaters at the wedding. In the books they actually go to Tottenham Court Road, which really isn't too far.

The street where they filmed.

Gringotts from the first movie. They used the Australian Embassy and for security reasons we were unable to go inside. But isn't that door fabulous?

Hey I'm just going to get my gold from Gringotts.

Leadenhall Market, where they filmed Diagon Alley in the first movie. I'm thinking they must've changed the store fronts considerably, because in real life they're all red and green.

But it looks like Diagon Alley.

Borough Market, where they filmed the scene of the Knight Bus pulling up to the Leaky Cauldron in Prisoner of Azkaban.

Obviously, the Millenium Bridge, with St Paul's Cathedral in the background.

These past pictures are actually a mixture of two days. The first day was really long and we didn't have time to get to Millenium Bridge and Borough Market until the second. On Wednesday we took a free guided walking tour of Central London and learned all about the history of the buildings and the country in general. We heard about a very drunken Irish man that broke into Buckingham Palace in the 80s and succeeded in finding the Queen's chambers where he asked her for a cigarette. We also learned that the man on top of the column in Trafalgar Square is Admiral Nelson, who died in battle and was taken back to England in a casket of brandy (rum?). When they got back most of the alcohol was gone and they realized that many of the sailors had decided to drink his "hero juice" for luck. Many fun stories, and the tour is all tip-based. Sandeman tours, if you're ever in a major European city and want to learn some fun stories.

So here are some pictures of general London, sans Harry Potter...

Parliament, obviously. The tower on the far left is called Victoria Tower after Queen Victoria, and the tower on the far right is actually called Elizabeth Tower, after Elizabeth II. Big Ben refers to the bell, not the tower itself.

Parliament Building up close. This is the Victoria Tower.

Westminster Abbey. Didn't go inside because they were charging the exorbitant price of 16 POUNDS.

On the Millenium Bridge, with the Thames in the background and Tower Bridge in the distance.

Obligatory.

The Eye and the Thames from Westminster Bridge at night.

We got fish 'n' chips! One place wanted to charge us 10 pounds for take away ("to go"), so we kept looking and found this place that only charged 5.70 for eat-in. And the fish filet was huge.

Even I liked it, and I'm not the biggest fish fan.

Changing of the guard. We didn't stay to watch the whole ceremony, because we would've had to sit around and wait for an hour and our time was more precious than that.