Day 1: Chips for breakfast

24 hours on a plane was exactly as terrible as I thought it would be. Though, at the end, when we landed in London at 7 o'clock in the morning among the mist and the rain, it was worth it!

It was a typical London day - low lying cloud, not a hint of light until late in the morning (not that we actually saw it through the clouds, anyway), and everything was perfectly grey. We were lucky that the rain stopped once we got off the train. Since it was so early in the morning, we dropped our bags off at the hotel (a giant brown communist-looking building), and set off for a walk. We are staying right next to the Tower Bridge, which lives next to the Tower of London.

The Tower Bridge.

The Tower of London

First stop: food. And coffee. Dylan managed to find the most Sydney-hipster coffee joint where we had an excellent flat white. Dylan told me that I would be disappointed by all the coffee in Britain. So far, I was only impressed. After our delicious, and rather expensive, coffee, we hit up the 'Cat and the Cucumber' for breakfast. Picked mostly for the hilarious name. This ended up being an excellent choice. It was much more of a local joint, full of tradies. It had the most impressive menu I've ever seen. Any combination of eggs with sides, jacket potatoes, and any other carbs you could dream of. Dylan had the full English. We only spent 13 quid for a glorious potato-fest.

Yes, one quarter of that plate is just chips. For breakfast.

This was also accompanied by a terrible coffee ('a ghetto flat white', if you will). This was more on par with Dylan's coffee expectations. 

My breakfast was eggs, bacon, mushroom and hash browns. More of a focus on the 'hash brown' portion. Perfect. 

After this first adventure into English carbs, we set off on a long walk. Along the river Thames we passed Shakespeare's Globe, the Tate Modern art gallery, City Hall, many other glass buildings, a Christmas market, and I found my first London bookstore!

It was glorious. 

We walked past the ridiculous line at the London eye (47 quid for two people) and crossed Westminster bridge. Westminster itself is a glorious building. Sadly, Big Ben is covered in scaffolding at the moment. At this point, we were starting to tire and began the long walk back to the Tower Bridge on the north side of the river. There was a moment of some excitement when we stopped outside 10 Downing. The road itself was closed to cars, and there was a literal human wall outside the gates made of police officers. We stuck around for a few minutes to see if we'd get to say hi to Theresa, before heading off. 

Many police men and tourists. 

A nice Sphinx. 

22,500 steps later, we could finally check in and SHOWER. We also had a nap. Later on we headed out to the pub. After such a long flight and little sleep, we felt that it must be at least 10pm, but no. It was 4. How early can one eat dinner? Let's find out. We went for a drink at one pub, and discovered that many of them are actually part of a huge chain called JD Whetherspoons. Cookie-cutter pub, Dylan calls it. Not for us. We headed further away to find something different, and ended up at the New Moon. Hidden in a basement, lots of legit Brits watching the football ('lads'). Tottenham vs Chelsea. The famous Harry Kane. We finally got our pub dinner. Dylan had a legendary Pie about which he is still waxing lyrical. I had a mediocre burger. 

By this point it was only 6.30 but we were dead on our feet. In bed by 7.30, we had settled in for 12 hours of sleep. Hopefully the jet lag has been defeated! Today, we drive to Salisbury. 

A+D