London Day Two – The one with the wax

T-Rex and I awoke hungry and disoriented. Having accidentally slipped into a micro-comma the night before, food was foremost on our mind. We got ready for the day, T-Rex is addicted to checking the weather, so we were well-informed that this was going to be our first true cold London day. I thought my Pea Coat and a T-Shirt would be enough to keep me warm, I was so very wrong. After leaving the hotel, we wandered over to The Original Tour HQ, a double-decker tour bus company. We have them in Brisbane, but I honestly don’t know what they could offer over getting the 444 and a City Cat.

After collecting our tickets, we resumed our hunt for food. We found a quasi-American franchise called Garfunkel that seemed to have a cheap breakfast deal (have I mentioned how expensive all the food is here yet?). The food itself was solid, nothing great but not bad either, T-Rex had her first English Breakfast Tea which was a monumental occasion. Finally we stumbled over to the pickup the red route to Madame Tussaud’s. We ended up waiting about 30 minutes for a bus, but standing outside the Canadian Embassy felt like we were in the middle of a wind tunnel during arctic wind testing.

When we did finally board the bus, we sat on the bottom level as it was warmer, with dismayed looks from the driver. We calculated which stop we need to transfer to the blue line to get to the wax museum by 11am, the time we had booked for. As it is the off-season, the stops are not very busy, this is important as when we jumped off the bus, it looked like the middle of no where. Now I know that the middle of no where in London is not that bad, there are still hundreds of cars and people walking down, but we found ourself on the edge of Hyde Park, with no obvious bus stop or place to transfer bus routes.

We decided to cut our losses and just start walking towards our destination in the cold winds. We got about 15 minutes down the road when we noticed the correct bus we needed drive past us! Realising where we were dropped of was indeed the correct point, we sorted back there to wait in the freezing winds for another 30 minutes for the next bus to come along.

We arrived at Madame Tussaud’s with still plenty of time to spare. Upon entering it, we found all the celebrities, movie stars, singers, politicians and important people who you come to expect from the experience.

As we got further through the exhibits, we came across the Marvel and Star Wars displays. Being a fan of both franchises, I was excited to say the least. I’ll let the photos below tell the story.

We went across the road to our first pub, The Globe. We were confused how to find a seat as well as where, when and how to order. After some confusion about alcoholic ginger beer, our food finally arrived. The warmth and fattyness of the food was soul nourishing in the chilly weather. It was a perfect first taste of English pub food.

We then toured the rest of the city on the double-decker bus tour. Having been able to successfully navigate London with ease by ourself and the infrequency of the tour bus, meant that it was not the alternate transport option we had originally planned for. Nevertheless, it did offer insightful facts about the history and landmarks of the area.

We finally made our way back to our hotel room and in the warmth and comfort of our hotel room and having such a busy and eventful day exploring, we slipped off to sleep without dinner for the second night.

About the Author

Mannan

Mannan is a software engineering enthusiast and has been madly coding since 2002. When he isn't coding he loves to travel, so you will find both of these topics on this blog.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *