On the Eighth Day of London..

Man, I slept about 12 hours last night. I guess I was making up for being sleep deprived these last few days. I was hoping to pass out on my 11 hour flight from Moscow to LA.. not looking forward to that ride back.

I didn't really have an itinerary for today, since I've done pretty much everything on my to do list. I googled Changing of the Guard and I don't know wtf I watched on Tuesday, but as I suspected, that wasn't it. I was wondering why it looked a little weak.

Anyway, so I made it to Changing of the Guards today, but I didn't have a great view. I got there about an hour early so I wanted to find a trash can to throw away my coffee cup. I walked up and down the streets for a while and asked someone working in a museum if there was one in there. This is how you know London doesn't have very many trash cans.. she directed me to the exact closest trash can. In LA, they'd probably say, "I don't know.. look outside somewhere."  I also wandered into the Buckingham Palace Gift Shop, where I saw a special limited edition teddy bear on sale... for £250, which is more than $400. Wow.

Anyway, that took about 30 minutes (seriously).  I don't know if the span of time I spent for Changing of the Guards was worth it, considering my poor view, but at least I went.  

The Buck!

On another note, I'm getting better/more comfortable with taking selfies, but I noticed a lot of selfie sticks at Buckingham Palace.. I don't know if I'll ever be that shameless. Meanwhile, those people probably have great pictures of themselves, so maybe I'm missing out.

The good thing about taking pics in a heavily populated space is that people don't realize you're actually taking pics of them.

Then, I went to Camden Market, which kinda reminds me of a less ghetto version of Olvera Street. There was an Asian dude working at a restaurant yelling "Where you from?" to passersby, but he was silent when I strolled along. Rude.. he ain't know where I'm from!

These cool scooter/motorcycle seats

Anyway, then I went to Marble Arch to take a few pictures.

I saw this lady feeding the birds and it reminded me of Home Alone 2 or Mary Poppins.

This lady in the tube station had TEN boxes of Krispy Kremes. I HAD to take a pic but on the first attempt, my autoflash went off. Embarrassing fail! 

Finally, I went to the Kings Cross station to look for the 9 3/4 platform, from Harry Potter. Although I'm not a fan, it's pretty close to my hostel, so I thought I might as well go. Now I'm wondering if they have this at the Harry Potter World at Universal Studios in Hollywood or Orlando. 

I didn't pay to have my pic taken because I prefer taking a free pic with something I ACTUALLY love. See last pic below..

Today is the last day of my one week Oyster Card pass in Zones 1&2 so I can't go too many places tomorrow. I think I'll go to the British Museum and the Charles Dickens Museum, which are both within walking distance.  Speaking of walking, I'm sad because I know my vacation habits won't carry over when I go home. For instance, I find myself only eating two meals a day, and one is always breakfast (or brekkie, as they call it here).  Also, I walk a ton! Here's some of my FitBit stats below.

I'll miss taking the tube everywhere - it makes me feel street savvy :) I need to get home to my precious Clarisonic, though. The gross air from the tube and the prevalent cigarette smoke is freaking out my skin.  I've had to get used to other things too.. like I usually change my pillow case on a daily basis and that has def not happened here. There's also a lot of random B.O., as well as streets that unexpectedly smell like pee. It also grosses me out that there's a bandaid stuck to one post of my bunk bed, really close to my towel. And let's not even talk about the things left behind in the communal bathroom.  Traveling is not good for a germaphobe but you deal with it.. and complain later :) I've smelled a combo of B.O. and too much (stanky) cologne on my flights to and from Moscow so.. I have that to look forward to tomorrow.

Lest I become inconsistent, I enjoyed dessert today. However, I decided to mix it up and have frozen custard instead of ice cream.

For one of these, I could've had four McDonald's dipped cones. Oh well, when in London..