London Day 5

When traveling like this, there are always bound to be days that don't go exactly as planned. Today was one of those days. The plan was to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We needed cash so we stopped at an ATM in the subway and the machine "retained" Amy's card. Ellie, Luke, and I waited at the Palace for the changing of the guard and Amy walked over a branch of the ATM's bank to sort things out. After talking to the London bank and our bank it seems to have been a glitch and we were able to use my card to get cash. The morning did not get much better when we realized the changing of the guard ceremony was the "basic" version and we waited an hour an a half for next to nothing. And then we thought we were double charged for our order at McDonalds. (Yes, we broke down for something cheap-ish, quick and familiar - plus a good bathroom!). The day started to brighten up when we got to the British Museum. We saw the Rosetta Stone, some of the Elgin Marbles, and lots of mummies. The museum is so big that we only scratched the surface of the place. Our next stop was the British Library with its collection of famous books and manuscripts. My favorites we're the handwritten lyrics to "Help" "Yesterday," "Ticket to Ride" and "Michelle" by the Beatles. The Library also had notebooks from Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci and a Gutenberg Bible. We took a bus to the library for our first ride on a double decker bus. We are going to have to get used to the bus because there is a Tube strike planned for Thursday. Our final stop of the day was King's Cross station and Platform 9 3/4 were Harry Potter always catches the Hogwart's Express. They actually have a sign on the wall with a luggage cart sticking halfway out (if you have no idea what I am talking about, you need to read Harry Potter or talk to somebody who has). We took the Tube back to our hotel and finally had some pub grub for dinner. It was quite good and filling.