London Bridge Is Not Falling Down

A Day Trip To London

Enjoying some hard elderflower cider on Tower Bridge.

What Did We Do In London

It was a long ride.

Getting To London

We had plans to go to Nottingham today but sadly the places we wanted to go to were flooded due to the rain we experienced yesterday. We still wanted to explore somewhere new so we hopped on a bus and went to London. It was a nice three-hour bus ride. Usually, you would just take a train to London but there were no tickets available to London. Right now in the UK, there is a railroad strike going on and this makes getting tickets very hard. It was nice to see that strikes still happen in places other than the U.S. Once we got off the bus we went to Kings Cross Station where we hopped on a train to the Bank of England.

The Bank of England

We started our London trip with a visit to the Bank of England Musem. It was quite interesting to look into the history. I really liked all the features that they have on their printed money. While we were visiting they had a special exhibit up featuring slavery and how it was connected to the bank. I wasn't very familiar with how the bank worked in England but I will say that I was surprised to see that just like how we have the FED to monitor our interest rates, they also have a separate entity that does that. I didn't get to go into the actual bank itself because it wasn't open to the public. 

The Borough Market

The lovely meal at the market.

When I heard about the Borough Market I was expecting to walk into something like a farmers market from back home. When we arrived at the market I was surprised to find a packed area that featured many stalls with so many goods. I feel like you could have bought anything from the market. While it was a little intimidating to walk into such a busy area, I wanted to try and fully immerse myself in the culture so I could experience it all. It is impossible to walk around and not get hungry because everything smells so good. While waiting in line to order the chef overheard us talking about how good the chips (fries) looked so he let us taste the chips because he claimed that they were better than American ones. He was right! He explained to us that the chip was cooked in beef fat rather than vegetable oil like in America. By cooking the differently it made the chips taste so much good and added a nice flavor to them. Once it was my turn to order I got myself one of the famous sausage rolls that everyone was raving about. These sausage rolls were worth raving about. I topped them off with some fresh strawberries which were also amazingly good. Lastly, as we were on our way out I stopped at a small cider stand where I tried some hard elderflower cider. It was a different flavor that I had never had before. I had seen elderflower-flavored drinks all over the UK but I had never heard of it before so I was happy to get a chance to try it. 

My First Opinion of London

I had a great time in London and I am very excited to go back for longer towards the end of my trip to the UK. I will say that I was so surprised at the lack of personal space that you had when walking on footpaths. I was used to in America if you see someone walking towards you in your walking path you both move to the side to give some space. In London, even if you were directly in the way, people would keep walking on their path. I had so many people run into me despite my efforts to give everyone room on the footpaths. Something else that caught me off guard was the number of people who vape or smoke in the UK. I swear everywhere I looked everyone was smoking something. Despite these experiences, I had a fantastic time in London and I look forward to exploring the Tower of London when I return.