Tower of London and London Bridge - 24th May 2013

*I envisage that these will get shorter and less frequent as time goes on

I had planned to make the first one of these while waiting for my flight in Hong Kong, but as flights do they don’t always arrive on time. 30 minutes late wasn't too bad for an 11 hour flight, but 2 hours wasn't really enough time to write anything when you spend an hour trying to find a shower and fail to find one, then it was on to finding some food, chocolate pastry and a pack of chips.

The flight itself wasn't bad at all. 11 hours really did fly by. Managed to get through half a book, watched a movie and a couple of TV programs. Meals were pretty average but can’t complain, it aeroplane food. The next flight wasn't too good. The little in flight entertainment screen kept playing up so couldn't really be bothered with it and was too tired to read my book so just had to sit there with my eyes closed hoping I would sleep. Struggled to sleep, maybe 2 hours out of the 13, so writing this nearly 12 hours after getting off the plane, no decent sleep for almost 44 hours, feeling pretty tired.

Managed to get onto to the underground system and figured it out pretty quick. Was about 7am when I hoped on so the carriages filled up pretty quick. Found my first stop easy enough. Then I had to find my way to the next platform to catch a different line. That one was almost jammed packed so a guy with a massive backpack made it even more crowded, luckily I was only on it for a couple of stops. Then I had to surface and figure out where the hell I was going. Started going the complete wrong direction for about 5 minutes until I realised so turned around and went back the right way, only to take about 3 wrong turns along the way but managed to find my hostel in the end.

My hostel, The Dictionary, isn’t flash but that’s mainly due to most of it still being under construction because the bits that are done are quite nice (Hopefully get a picture to show you). They held onto my large bag for me and gave some breakfast, which I get every morning but wasn’t expecting it today, corn flakes and a muffin. Had a chat with a couple of people there who were leaving today but everyone seemed friendly.

Tried to get up and leave, got outside even but then I managed to convince myself not to go out. To hang around the hostel even though I couldn’t check in to my room until 2pm and it was about 9am. Sat in the bar which I get free wi-fi in and had a chat with mum and Kate on Facebook and Angela on viber, got to love technology! After that I decided I really should go out and do something.

I decided on London Bridge and tower seeing as they were pretty much directly south of the hostel so easy to get to. I was going to walk the whole way as I wasn’t exactly pressed for time but the weather was pretty miserable, rain, wind and cold, Nothing extreme just not a nice combination. Had a look at the buses going passed and one said London Bridge so hopped on that one and off I went.

I Had a walk along the river down towards London Tower. I had a look at the outside and the debated with myself whether I should bother going in. Then I decided I should so went a bought my ticket and went in and had a look around. Probably should have taken more time to read the signs and understand the significance of all the different areas but at that point was 30 something hours without sleep so the attention span was a little short. But Enjoyed the walk around, the fresh air and the old buildings, plenty of them in England.

I decided I had enough of that at about 12pm so headed on out to find somewhere to have lunch, tried to find a pub which had the cricket on (turns out the cricket was rain delayed anyway), but nothing really on my way, so walked to a tube station and hopped on the one that comes closest to my hostel, about a 10 minute walk. Got some lunch from a convenience store and took it back to the hostel to have in the kitchen.

Finally got to check in about 2.30, a few other people got here before 2 as well. Had a few issues with the key card at first but finally got it working and then the highlight of my day. SHOWER! Hadn’t had one since leaving Auckland so really needed it. And that’s about it.

Now im writing this at 4.30pm on 24 May. I probably won’t get round to posting this for a while but that bit is just so I know where it all fits