London, England – May 30th – June 2nd, 2017

En-route from Borneo to Colombia, it only made sense to do a 4-day stopover in London. “Bull shit,” says the geography nerd! By traveling through London, we actually traveled ¾ of the way around the world! Ironically, our little London adventure saved us over $1000 on flights! Even more ironically, Andy’s sister, Lillian, was also in London visiting her very cool English boyfriend at the same time! Unfortunately, our trips only overlapped for one day, so, as soon as we landed at 6:30 am we made our way to King’s Cross Station for a Schmidty reunion.

Somehow, even after 24 hours of red-eye travel, we managed to squeeze in most of London’s major sites in one day! We saw: King’s Cross Station, Platform 9 ¾, Buckingham Palace, St. James Park, the Royal Stables, Downing Street, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster bridge, the London Eye, the Millennium foot bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Globe, the Golden Hinde, Borough Market, Southwark Cathedral, London Bridge (not falling down), HMS Belfast, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, and of course several different English pubs for liquid energy along the way. Wow, right?!!? We ended the day at an AMAZING Indian restaurant, then eventually made our way to the East End where we settled into our AirBnB after 10pm. It was an incredible day, made even better by an unexpected day with Lillian and Pailes!

Platform 9 3/4, King's Cross Station, Buckingham Palace, and the streets of London. 

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The Royal Stables, St. James's Park, and some other sights around London.

Some more amazing sights around London. Andy especially liked the local pubs!

St. Paul's Cathedral and some very cool old buildings.

The Tower of London, Borough Market, and modern construction.

Tower Bridge is quite a sight.

London really took us by surprise. For whatever reason, we were expecting New York – with high rise buildings, crowds (my person fav), a bit of grunge, and lots of hustle. As it turns out, London is a sprawling metropolis, with historic buildings, quiet streets, and lots of charm. We loved it! After a bit of planning in the morning, we set out for another exhausting day. As part of our research, we discovered that we could rent city bikes for $2 per day if we could manage to only ride them for 30-minute stints, each time returning them to a city bike station before we were charged the extra couple bucks for a longer ride. Cheap ass challenge accepted! The only problem was finding stations on our route within the 30-minute time frame. Surprisingly, we managed the entire 10-hour day of sightseeing with only going over the time limit once and only because the station was already full of bikes. We rode those dorky city bikes for approximately 15 miles! We mostly used the pathways alongside the canal to visit Shoreditch (a trendy neighborhood on the East End), Camden Town, where we walked through the markets, Primrose Hill, which provided an excellent view over the city, Regent’s Park, Queen Mary’s Gardens, Kensington Palace, Albert Memorial, and Hyde Park. After returning the bikes for the last time around sundown, we took the train to Greenwich and walked along the water in search of a dinner spot. It was much later than expected when we finally returned to the AirBnB, but nobody can say we squandered our London layover. You can sleep when you’re dead.

The canal ride to Camden Town. 

Kensington Palace and Primrose Hill.

Although infested with crowds, the Stables Market in Camden Town was really cool! 

More Camden Town sights.

Greenwich along the water.

On day 3, after spending the morning with our friendly AirBnB hosts, we went to the Globe to watch a hilarious version of Shakespeare’s Play, The Twelfth Night. Besides having to stand in the hot sun for 3-hours (because we are too cheap to buy a legit seat), the play was really good, especially considering the super cool venue. After the play, we went to Westminster again to comb over the last of the main London sights that we had missed on Day 1. We visited Westminster Abby and Trafalgar Square before going to Covent Garden and a really cool pub for dinner and a pint. After dinner, we went to a comedy show (somehow, everything is more funny in an English accent) before finally dragging ourselves into bed around midnight.

Our AirBnB hosts were great, but the cat stole the show.

Though it's a reconstruction, the Globe Theatre was so cool!

Our last sights in London, including Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, and Covent Garden.

After far too little sleep, we packed up early and made our way to the airport. Along the journey, we encountered our first hostile, extraordinarily simple minded, Londoners. Here’s what happened: We needed to be paid out the balance on our Oyster Cards (the public transit card) and also buy tickets for the train to the airport. Tough concept, I know. The problem arose, because a few days before we had unknowingly forgotten to scan out at the station in Greenwich, which didn’t have an obvious scan-out machine. The problem had been remedied by a very intelligent, very helpful, London transport attendant man, who gave us a discount on future train trips in order to make up for being overcharged. This, however, was a tough concept for the simple-minded ticket attendant who was more than a little bitchy, refused to listen, and somehow, when it was all said and done, we payed about $30 more than we should have and were sent packing with a useless complaint form. Unbeknownst to us, we could have just used our Oyster card electronically and avoided the entire situation – oh well, live and learn. In good news, we made it to the airport, boarded our flight, and were on our way to South America!