The Elseas in London

Hello all, this is Ryan, the youngest brother of the Elizabeth in Madrid heroine. As the official new co-owner of the blog, it is my responsibility to complete the London column. Elizabeth did not arrive until late Wednesday night (12/21), so I will also go through what I did with Mom and Liam in the days leading up.

P.S. Certain words and/or syllables may be altered to best encapsulate the British culture.

20/12/22, Chewsday

Our trio landed at the airport around 9am. Our first display of being daft Americans came quickly, as we told Customer Service that we thought another traveller mistakenly took up our bag. Instead, it was going for its 50th lap around our luggage belt. We then took public transportation to our hotel, dropped our stuff off, and walked to the Borough Market. After getting lunch (American food), we strolled by all of the little stores and made our way toward the Tower of London.

Tower of London (the towers on the left) and Tower Bridge (the towers on the right with the bridge). Some viewers may also recognize it as the bridge from Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Inside the Tower of London. The flats are where the families of the Beefeaters and other associates of the Tower live.

We did a 90-minute group tour with Beefeater Dave. Beefeaters are ceremonial guardians of His Majesty's Fortress. The main thing I remember is that there are actually like 19 towers in the Tower of London. This is also where the Crown Jewels are kept, so we saw those too. Then we took the tube (metro) back to our hotel and got ready for our fine dining experience in the hotel club lounge before going to bed. We met some blokes from Indianapolis while we were there.

21/12/22, Wednesday

We started our day by getting breakfast at the hotel and taking the tube to Stamford Bridge. This is where our favorite soccer team, Chelsea, plays their home matches. We were the lone Americans of the group, so anytime I had a question I made sure it was a good one so that we didn't seem daft once again. We walked through the locker room, press conference area, and the tunnel that the teams always come out of before kick-off. We also hit up the gift shop and got a few things (there was no Christian Pulisic merch). It turns out that British prices are actually quite reasonable- team calendars for 4 pounds!

Quite the lovely pitch.

Sorry for the blur. This is Mom with Kepa Arrizabalaga, her favorite Chelsea goalie. He's also Spanish. Most people just call him "Kepa", but the British tend to use the word "Shite" instead.

After the tour, we went directly to Westminster Abbey. We passed Big Ben (now renamed the Elizabeth Tower, as of 2012) on the way.

We did an audio tour with little iPods connected to headphones because the guided tour was 2+ hours long and we were not interested. We made the right decision and still saw all the cool stuff.

Sorry again for the blur.

Lots of famous people are buried in Westminster: Elizabeth l, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin/Dickens, Stephen Hawking, etc. These are just random statues though. I don't think any of these people were buried there.

After Westminster, we went to a Fish and Chips place recommended by one of the workers. Afterward, we walked to a coffee shop to chill before going to our final event of the day- Hyde Park Winter Wonderland! Before going, Mom described it as a Christmas market. I would classify it as the Christmasy cousin of the Fall Festival on 'roids. This is just one picture, but it felt like we walked 2+ miles to just do one lap.

There were tons of different stalls we walked by, most of them selling food and drink. Liam's drink exploded onto him because he poked a hole in the bottom. We only went on one ride since most of the others had too long of a wait or were too scary. It was fun. They had swings that would embarrass any other swings you've seen in your life. But you can't trust those seasonal rides man, especially since Mom showed us a video of one malfunctioning while people were on it that happened ~2 days before we were there. Liam and I wanted this sweater, but the price unfortunately wasn't as reasonable as the Chelsea store's (30 pounds!).

After the Winter Wonderland, we took the tube back to the hotel (we did this a lot). While we were waiting for Elizabeth to get to our place, we got ready for dinner/bed since we once again went to the club lounge for our fine dining. This was my favorite day in London. (This is Elizabeth: I would like to add that my phone was acting up when I landed and I had no service, and I successfully navigated myself to the hotel with two screenshots and a dream. It took a train and two metros and a walk, no sweat.)

22/12/22, Thursday

Same old, same old. Breakfast then tube. We went to Covent Garden, another square with shops and restaurants. We mostly just walked around and eventually made our way to St. Paul's Cathedral. I didn't really get any good pictures of either place, but here's this nice wagon:

We didn't go into St. Paul's, but had lunch at a pizza place across the street from it. If any of the readers are looking to diversify their social media aesthetic, there is a nice red telephone booth in front of the church that was a hotspot for white girls taking candids. It was mostly Mom and Elizabeth making fun of them since they could see them from the restaurant window, so don't hate on me. Our final agenda item for the day was going to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour and seeing the real props/sets they used to film Harry Potter. But first, we had some time to kill, so we went to a pub where 22-year-old Elizabeth got ID'd in a country where you have to be 18 to drink a peachy ale. (This is Elizabeth: I would like to add that that was the first time I've been carded since I've been here, and I went up and ordered with my mom. And then Liam (age 20) went up by himself later and ordered no problem, not carded. Pain. Agony even.) Then we took about an hour-long coach to the studio. Pictured next is the Elizabeth in Madrid co-owner wielding the Sword of Gryffindor.

Hogwarts model that they used to film. Peep the blokes on the far right side for scale.

We were at the studio for 3-4ish hours before taking the bus back to our hotel. I'll let you guess where we had dinner before going to bed.

23/12/22, Friday

Our last day. Same old, same old, once again. Breakfast then tube. We went to the British Museum and spent probably 3-4 hours there too from start to finish, including a snack break. Some viewers may also recognize it as the museum from Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. This was pretty cool. They had a temporary exhibit for Egyptian hieroglyphs that we did first. This big rock was with it:

The museum had a very big gift shop too. Lots of books. Lots of postcards. Good experience all around. When we were done, we walked to a pub in the pouring rain. We had mostly good weather our entire trip leading up to this point, so we were due. I don't remember what others had at the restaurant, but I enjoyed my seafood pasta.

British Crown propaganda in the pub.

After dinner, we took the tube back to our hotel and packed up our stuff. We had to wake up very early the next morning to go to the airport, so we called it a night. London treated us well. Thanks for reading.