kaylaphillips - 5 hours in London

Monday morning, 7am, I stepped off the plane in London - not having slept at all on the 9 hour flight. I took a stroll

around London Gatwick airport and quickly decided not to spend my layover sitting around watching stressful travelers chase down their next plane. I jumped on a train to Victoria, the heart of London, and there I strolled around and asked a few questions about what to see and do. The suggestions I got were great, some even humorous: 1)take a tour of the city via bus, 2)visit a local pub and drink warm beer (yuck!), 3)eat good fish and chips from a street vendor, 4)move to London because you'll never be able to see the city in a few hours. I decided to start with #1, skip #2 and #4, and try to squeeze in #3. I met a nice man from Senegal who directed me to board the correct doubledecker bus and off I went with all the other tourists. For the next 4 hours we zipped through the city seeing all the major attractions. It was a whirlwind

experience, but I'm glad I did it.

Here's a snippet of what I saw:

- Big Ben

- Buckingham Palace

- Westminster Abbey

- tons of red double decker buses and old fashion black taxis

- the Thames River

- Tower Bridge

- London Bridge - which is not falling down

- more cultures represented than

I've ever seen in any one place

- political demonstrations protesting the situation in Sri Lanka - much more peaceful than any political demonstrations I've seen in Africa!

- London Eye

- Tower Bridge

- St. Paul's Cathedral

- the Kenya embassy - randomly ran across this

- tons & tons of statues

My day in London flew by, it was a great way to spend my layover. I met some very interesting people, laughed a lot, made some fun memories, and I did get the chance to grab some fish & chips before I ran onto my train to return to the airport.

Next stop...Mijas, Spain. Tune in again soon to hear of my Spain adventures.