Day 2: London Baby!

Sept 10

I was led into the Customs line from Hell. It took an hour and a half to get
through. Once I did I met Melanie and Jason at my baggage claim who had been waiting for three hours. What do you do? Next was deciding where to go. We had no hotel reservations, we were just gonna wing it. We knew we wanted to go to church and the sacrament meeting we could catch was in South Kensington. So that's where we went. We bought our Tube pass after getting some Pounds and caught the next train.

First thing we needed was a hotel. So we found an internet place right next to the station and checked what was around. We made a list of a few and then tried to figure out where we were. So we needed a map. Then we hoisted our packs and off we went. We got a little lost but on the way we saw the Victoria and Albert Musuem and the Natural History Musuem and hey where church would be. We seemed to be in the Victoria and Albert section of London because everything seemed to be dedicated to them.

And coincidentally we checked into the Albert Hotel. Our receptionist was very nice and helped us out even though they don't normally take walk-ins. Our room is kind of small with two bunk beds, making this more of a hostel than a hotel. We do have our own bathroom which is good but really small and a disgusting shower. Jason plopped down on the bed and napped while Mel and I quickly changed for church. We were excited to hear an English accent from the pulpit.

Once we got Jason up and going we headed over a block to the building. Now because of lack of sleep we were all extremely tired. I have never had the hardest time trying to stay awake in church. Though I tried really hard for the first speaker. She was really spunky and had an accent. Kind of reminded me of Julie. After Sacrament meeting we decided we needed a power nap before we could do anything else.

After the nap I talked them into going to Kensington Palace. Yay! First palace! I really wanted to go in but we missed the last admission by a second because of dawdling. I was a little bugged but oh well the gardens were nice. So we spent the rest of the day walking around Kensington Garden and Hyde Park taking pictures. Here's a couple:



Time to eat. We walked an insane amount of distance to find some place to eat, the whole time passing many viable options, but no one would make a decision. We finally settled on a little cafe where the food was okay and then took the long trek back to the hotel. We ended up walking around the outside of the whole garden, as now it was closed. And it is big my friend, it is big. Back at the hotel we tried to figure out plans for tomorrow and then never has sleep come so soon.