Day 1: London

12/27/2010
After months of anticipation, and a week of being glued to the weather channel, we finally arrived in London! It still doesn't feel real yet. We were both commenting (over a couple of beers last night) that it feels like we are in grown up Disneyland, but everything is real. The beautiful Victorian buildings draped in moulding and history... narrow roads that look like they were made for toy cars. It feels a lot like Main Street in Disneyland... but with great pubs. We spent most of the evening just walking around and admiring the city. Our plane landed around 900 and we got to hotel around 1130. I was a little surprised by how smoothly everything went getting to the hotel. We purchased a 3 day oyster card at Heathrow and hopped on the tube like we knew what we were doing. Marcus said he was totally geeking out the whole tube ride over, just gawking at the city as it whizzed by. We arrived at the hotel and luckily they let us check in early. We napped, showered, and hit the streets around 1530. We really had no plan except to find some fish & chips and beer. We hopped on the Piccadilly line and got off at St Paul's in search of a pub built in the 1600's called Ye Old Cheshire Cheese that we read about in Rick Steve's London. We stumbled upon St Paul's Cathedral and decided to snap a few shots. As we did so we noticed people were actually walking in and that it was open (it was dark already and I had just figured it was closed.) We walked in to find that a special "Christmas Songs & Readings" service was being held. We grabbed a seat and listened as the choir sang. The cathedral was amazing with ornate details everywhere you looked. After the service we walked around the cathedral and stood under the dome. If you stand in the very center and look up you can see the 3 levels of the dome and all of the ornate detailed painting of each. I felt like we cheated a bit because not only did we tour St Paul's for free (usually 12lb) but we were also serenaded by a choir singing Christmas songs and hymns. Lucky ducks. After the service we headed out to find the pub only to find it was already closed. We headed back to the tube and stumbled upon the Black Friar, another pub recommended by Rick Steve. We ordered a couple draft beers and the fish plate which was a combo of fried fish, calamari, scampi, and chips. Despite the fish looking more like fish sticks than fillets it was quite tasty. After our dinner we hopped back on the tube and wandered around Covent Garden & Piccadilly Square. We were both still quite tired from traveling and called it a night fairly early. We plan on doing the Westminster Walk tomorrow and seeing Big Ben, The London Bridge, The London Eye, and everything else in that area. Cheers!