I still haven't written about London, have I? I am way behind. I may never catch up, but I will try.

First I'll tell you I am in the kitchen at the YMCA hostel in Bath. Hannah and I got here after a long boring train ride from Chichester and a wee hike from the train station. I forgot to download my directions while at Susan's and was proud of myself for remembering the way here from last time. I was pleased to find it was a lot closer than I remembered. We had a lovely dinner of sammies, chips, fruit and soda provided by Susan and now were enjoying the free wifi while a bunch of Spanish girls char loudly. The wifi here is free, but not in the rooms. The hostel is pretty nice. Second best after the Caledonia Backpackers in Edinburgh.

The trip from Edinburgh to London was long and a little hectic. I wasn't exactly sure how to get from Heathrow to the city, and by the time we made it in it was late and crowded (Friday night). I
It was really warm out, especially after Scotland and it was practically a furnace in the subway (Tube). I was red faced and sweaty by the time we made it to the hostel, and then we had to climb a thousand steps to our teeny tiny room. I'll save the hostel review for a post later, but we did not love it. We rested up and made it back down to the lobby to pay a pound for 20 minutes of internet and then head out for dinner and a look about. We bought some groceries and ate them in some square before heading down for a look at the lights and the river from the Millennium Bridge. Then we went back and seriously crashed out.

Until the next morning when the bells woke me up. Eventually I got Hannah up and out towards the British museum. We spent 4 hours there and didn't even see half of it. It was fantastic. We didn't know what to do next for sure, and we didn't know exactly where we were, but lucky for us there were lots of maps about. We found a Marks & Spencer across the street from a tube stop and I bought a shirt to try to replace my lost shirt. We took the tube to see Parliament, heard Big Ben chime, ate some sammies at Cafe Nero (and found dome free wifi!), saw Westminster Abbey (but didn't go inside because it was closing), bought some cold medicine (day nurse) at Boots, walked down Whitehall to Trafalgar Square and then headed back to the hostel for a quick rest and change of clothes before we met the London Walks guide for a ghost tour of our area. We learned many creepy things, including that we were staying right down the road from the barber shop of Sweeny Todd himself. I enjoyed it but Hannah didn't find it ghosty enough I don't think.

The next day was Sunday so we headed off to Hyde Park for Speaker's Corner. It was insanely crowded on the tube, and maybe even more so in the park! There was some free concert and a 5k run, so Speaker's corner wasn't even happening. Big drag. We didn't even really enjoy the park. Bad choice all around. We were right on Oxford St so Hannah wanted to do some shopping. She bought a few things at H & M. We headed off to the tube stop for the Harry Potter walking tour and almost missed it because I had the wrong time in mind. We missed the first stop, which was Gringotts Bank, but rushed to catch up with them at the next stop. I didn't really love it. It was rushed and covered a huge area with tons of walking. There was too much about other movies, not enough HP talk, and the guide said Rowling wrong. It ended up in the middle of some Thames Fare going on along the river and I could not even bare how crowded it was. I thought I was about to have a freak out panic attack at a couple points but we finally made it back to the hostel where we hurriedly packed up, checked out, took a couple tubes trains to Waterloo station where we caught a train to Oxshott where my cousin Pam and her family lived.

They picked us up at the station, took us to their home and fed us some dinner. I had a marvelous shower. We slept great that night and decided to take the whole day off on Monday and rested up. Which was great and not great at the same time. We definitely needed the rest, but it turned out that there were so many things in London we didnt get to do that we really wished we would have had that extra day in the city.

Even though Hannah slept almost all day Monday, it was really hard to get her up and going Tuesday morning. It was almost 1 by the time we made it to the Tower of London. We stayed there til they closed, and then took the Jack the Ripper tour from the Tower Hill tube stop. We meant to take the London Walks tour but we weren't really on about the company after our other two walks, and then another guy showed up about 45 minutes earlier offering a different Jack the Ripper walk and we decided to go with him. We were really glad we did. H loved it, and even though I don't care about Jack the Ripper I found the tour very interesting. Because our guide was great. His name was Chris and he spent his days as a Beefeater at the Tower of London as the Raven keeper. It was super late by the time we made it back to Oxshott by Pam and Alex were so great they stayed up to give us a ride home from the train station.

And then it was our last day in London already! Instead of going into the city proper we took the train to Hampton Court. We loved it bunches. I think it was the best done of all the places we toured. We got there an hour after they opened and stayed almost till they kicked us out. We made it back to Oxshott just in time to walk across the field from the train station before it got dark, which was good because no one was around to pick us up that night. We had some dinner and packed up our suitcases. We enjoyed some internet and i called home for a bit. I tried to stay up til Pam got home but kept dozing off. But I woke up when she got there so we could say goodbye. They were up and out early the next morning and we were out hiking across the field with our luggage not much longer on the way to take the train to Susan's at Havant. Which you pronounce like 'haven't, not like huh-vant they way I'd think if it were American.

So that was London. Fast and furious, except the one day it wasn't.
I'm typed out for tonight. Maybe I can sum up our time around Chichester tomorrow when I wake up too early and can't get Hannah out of bed. Tomorrow is the Roman baths and a general looking around this beautiful ancient town.
Xox