Second day: St Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Tate Modern art gallery

The first night I went to sleep pretty early due to shift of time zones. I woke up at 3am. I went downstairs to the room with computers and spent a couple hours. Got back to sleep at 5am and slept until 8am. Hooray! This is now a normal waking up time.

Anna (Amy?) a girl in the room I'm in, told me they have free breakfast downstairs! Free breakfast was great. As much toast and cereal as you could eat. I had two pieces of toast with crunchy peanut paste, two with cheese, and a bowl of cocoa pops. It was really great to have this to start the day.

This day I planned to see St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, and London Bridge.

First shot of the morning as I've stepped out the door. I felt a lot more rested this day. The hostel is accessed through that blue door on the right. To the left, out of shot, is the side of the British Museum. I think this is Montague or Montacute Street.

I decided I'd walk the distance because I wasn't really in a rush and I was keen to see the random things that are seen on the ordinary street.

I stumbled upon this park. Nice trees and slightly muddy ground.

Statue celebrating some kind of martyr. Located in a kind of forgotten, out of the way place.

This looked fairly impressive. I later learned that this seems to be the back of something that is better seen from Fleet Street. I think.

A few characteristically London/England things: letter boxes, telephone box, a big statue, etc...

This huge church seemed to be hidden behind other building. I saw it only because the alley way existed. In Adelaide this building would probably be a big deal.

St Paul's Cathedral apparated before me.

St Paul's was GBP 14.5 entry. I hesitated since I'm fairly stingy, but it looked pretty good so I went for it. I'm glad I did because it was fairly breathtaking. You get an 'ipod touch' type of device which has audio tours of the various sections, sometimes with some video on the screen. It was great being able to choose different tracks and to go over things if I didn't hear it properly. the dome is 365 feet high. I was able to climb progressively almost to the top. Lots of stone spiral stairs. The first stop came to a circular balcony high up above the centre of the cathedral inside. Next, reached a circular lookout at the base of the done outside, I think. Then up higher almost to the top. Great skyline views of London. There was a window in the floor at the point located directly above the inner sphere, so you could look straight down into the space. No photos from inside since photography isn't allowed.

I spent a couple hours or so here, then pushed on for the Tower of London. I aimed to walk slightly along the river. I found a stairway that led right down onto the mud of the river side!

Made it to the Tower of London. Saw that it was GBP 17.5 and that there was only about 2.5 hours before it closed. So I decided I'd have to do it another day. I've heard there's a fair bit to see there. I got some photos of the outside though. This would be my first castle, so it was pretty cool to see.

Then I walked across the Tower Bridge.

Found an awesome laneway next to the bridge on the southern side. Iron walkways go between each side, so that when it was a functional wharf, people could cart things all around the place.

Once on the southern side, I started heading west, toward the Tate Modern art gallery. Passed a few various sites along the way.

Stumbled onto "Winchester Palace". It's the remains of an 11th century palace that I think was the home of some powerful people from the area. It got built over and lost in between the walls of other buildings. It was found again after some nearby buildings caught fire.

Shakespeare's globe theatre. I think it's a replica, but it looks fairly neat.

Made it to the Tate Modern gallery. Free entry, and public toilets. Hooray! Toilets don't seem to exist in London. So far I know I can find them at museums, art galleries, and Mcdonald's.

This is a painting of waterlillies, by Monet.

They had a free exhibition. I looked down from the first floor to the ground floor to see a lot of people standing apparently looking at the exhibit. I couldn't figure out what it was. The vast space seemed to be empty apart from a lot of level gravel spread around. That was the exhibit! I had a funny exchange with a guy next to me. I was confused. "... it's gravel!" was his explanation. It was actually hand-made sunflower seeds, symbolising the rising force of China or something.

What are all these people looking at?

It's gravel.

Lots of pretty great artwork here. Saw several things by Picasso, Salvador Dali, Monet, Andy Warhol and probably lots of other great artists I don't recognise. My feet were very tired after looking around this gallery for a while. And the long walk. I headed across the Millenium Bridge back toward the hostel.

I picked a microwave meal of spaghetti bolognaise (pretty good) from Sainsbury's or somewhere, then pretty much collapsed to sleep.