London, Day 3 (8/2/14)

I meant to write every day, but the reality of it is that I've had 12-hour (or so) days walking around and on my feet for the past 3 days, so it's been difficult to find the energy. Nevertheless, as I'm getting ready to leave London, I can say that it is a wonderful city and definitely worth visiting!

I'll fill in Day 1 and Day 2 in London when I have some down time later on, but since I'd been so busy on those days and saw most of what I wanted to see, I decided that I could take it a little easier today. I woke up with really sore calves and feet (a product of walking so much), but it was nothing new. Before I left the hostel, I went to eat some breakfast. Because it was just before it was going to close, a lot of people were in the dining area and this one man took 3 of the hard-boiled eggs. It would have been okay if there were a lot left, but no, those were the last three. What kind of person does that?

Anyway, I first took the Underground (subway system) to the Olympic Park area that was the center of the action in 2012. I had completely forgotten that this was an option until it randomly popped into my head on Day 2, but I'm really glad I went. The area surrounding the main parks and facilities is really beautiful and a modern shopping area. It's very outlet-like, with live music and everything - and they have fancy water dispensers that are basically poles with an arm that juts out and pours water directly down into your water bottle. 

I had originally signed up for a tour of Olympic Park, but I was already about 5-10 minutes late when I got there and I had no idea where the tours were starting because the directions were "Across from the Aquatic Center," which happens to be extremely large, thank you. But no matter, because I got to see the London skyline (part of it) from the ArcelorMittal Orbit:

It's a really tall building that is designed specifically to be a tourist attraction. It opened in 2009 to prepare for the London Olympics in 2012, so it is very new. There is an elevator that will take you to the very top, where there are observation decks and interactive skyline displays and funky mirrors. I then chose to walk back down through the silver tube-looking thing around the red steel. It's lined with various speakers that play sounds from different places in the surrounding area (the park, the stadium, etc.).

On my way to Wimbledon, I stopped to get some Starbucks because I wanted to see if it was any different from the ones in the US. Everything is about 2x more expensive, and they sell "yoghurt" flavored with banana and red berry, but I got the "caramel creme," which is non-caffeinated caramel frappicino but looks like frosted milk. 

After I finally made it to Wimbledon, which is kind of in the middle of two Underground stations that are very far apart, I went on a tour to see how beautiful the grounds were:

They also have a great museum of Wimbledon and tennis history connected to the tennis club, and that is definitely worth checking out if you ever visit. 

After that, I took the Underground back to central London and started towards the London Eye, for which I bought tickets for a late night ride. I saw a lot of street performers as I made my way from the station to the Eye, but I didn't see any that caught my eye because I had a great experience watching some really talented street performer group when I visited New York City about 3 years ago. 

I arrived at the London Eye ticket offices early so that I could get the 4D experience beforehand, but I have to say it was a little weird. It was short (maybe 3 minutes or so?) and the animation/CGI followed a white bird into a "birds-eye" view of London. At times, we felt a soapy/bubbly liquid over us that smelled like bubble gum that didn't contribute to the experience, so I was really confused about it. Either way, there was a part where a child on the screen blew bubbles at us and another where a flare was coming out of the screen and it looked real enough for me to reach out and touch and duck from, which was cool. 

A couple pictures from my view of London from atop the London Eye:

It's so beautiful, isn't it? Even though I had seen much of the landscape already, I loved the nighttime/sunset view that I got.

As I started to the nearest Underground station to go back to the hostel, I saw these cute paintings on the walls under a bridge:

I also saw several police figures leaning over a homeless man that looked to be motionless, but it turns out that he was just extremely difficult to wake up and was okay to go.

That concludes my time in London! I had a really fantastic time and was able to see a lot, and I'm sure I'll be back soon! I'm off to Ghana tomorrow morning, which is nerve-wracking and completely exciting at the same time, so we'll have to see how it goes!