Day 15--London

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Today was our last day in Europe.
We arrived in London around 8am and first looked for a place to store our bags before we could check into the Hostel—Smart Russell Square Hostel. We decided to take our bags to the hostel and keep the backpacks there. After dropping off our bags we set out to go walking around London.
We first went over to Big Ben and started our day of picture taking. We were able to take pictures of Big Ben and the London Eye from the bridge. From there we headed over to St. Margaret’s Cathedral.
After the cathedral we headed back to the hostel to check in. We made our beds and got our bags put away and took a nap for a little while before heading back out to see more of the city.
After resting we set out for Buckingham Palace. There were a lot of barricades set up that were just being taken down so we had apparently just missed something big and important. We never did figure out what had been going on in front of Buckingham Palace. When we got to Buckingham Palace we saw the very end of the changing of the guard.
After we took what we thought were a sufficient amount of pictures we moved on to Westminster Cathedral. From there we traveled over to Trafalgar’s Square. There we first went to Hamley’s—a large toy store. In there we saw the ISIS he wants to get next. He seriously considered buying it because it was 150 pounds and he wouldn’t need to pay for shipping. When we left the store he looked up online how much the puzzle costs when ordering it online. In the end he decided against buying it so we moved on to Harrod’s. Harrod’s is a large high end department store. The first things we saw when walking in were Gucci and Louis Voutton purses. I had to just keep walking by so I wouldn’t want to buy the purses I shouldn’t be buying. After walking around Harrod’s and realizing that there wasn’t anything in the store we could even pretend to afford we moved on to our next destination.
We ended up at the Tower Bridge and London Tower. These were just closing so we weren’t able to go in. But we were able to add more pictures to the hundreds we’ve taken. After this we headed back to the hostel.
Once at the hostel we uploaded pictures to the entries that were lacking pictures. We then decided to get something to eat. We went to a grocery store to buy something there to bring back to the hostel to eat but didn’t find anything that we really wanted without having to cook it. So we bought snacks for later and decided to eat at a restaurant nearby. We ate at a place I can’t remember the name of and my camera is put away so I can’t look at the name in the picture I took—but the restaurant was a chicken place. We each had a chicken sandwhich and shared fries and garlic bread. After this we went back to the hostel to wait for it to get dark and see the city at night.
At the hostel we tried to watch the episodes of Harper’s Island we have missed but it is not available in the UK. Once it got dark we headed back out to Big Ben and Tower Bridge at night. The London Eye was also lit up nicely and so was the museum. The museum was lit up between the columns and would change color. Tower Bridge was also lit up, but not as cool looking as the London Eye or museum.
From there we went back to the hostel to pack up our bags and get ready for our trip back home. We rearranged our bags in order to be able to get everything home. We then tried to get some sleep because we needed to be up early to get to our 10:15am flight home.