Another Eventful Day in London

2008, 4.16 London, England:

Today was quite the day. My mom is here in London with me. This morning, we had some toast, tea, and coffee at our hotel for breakfast, went luggage shopping (I have waaaayyy to much stuff!) and then checked out of Olivelli's Hotel before stopping by the BUNAC Hostel to get more of my things. We traveled via the Underground to Stamford Brooke to drop our luggage off at the Globetrotter Inn in Hammersmith and then went back into Central London to check out the infamous Tower of London.

The White Tower of the Tower of London

After completing our tour of the Tower, we walked the Queen's Walk along the Thames River, crossing Tower Bridge and seeing London Bridge as we went.


From there, we took the Tube to Green Park, enjoyed an ice cream cone, saw Buckingham Palace, walked through the Wellington Arch, and then headed to Hyde Park. Mom really liked all the flowers. It was fun to see her so excited about the beautiful things around us.

While meandering through Hyde Park and then on to Kensington Gardens, we came across a filming for Burberry's Fall 2008 collection. The models were the attractive and talented Sam Riley, the main actor from the movie Control (I saw this movie earlier in my London trip and really enjoyed it, so it was neat to see this actor. Also, we smiled at each other as he walked by me--about a foot away, so that was fun), and famous model Rosie Huntington, who according to an article I later read is supposedly the next Kate Moss. I was a bit starstruck. It was fun.

Filming of Sam Riley and Rosie Huntington for Burberry fashion

Taking a walk through Kensington Gardens

Kensington Gardens at Kensington Palace

After Mom and I finished exploring the gardens, we headed back to Store Street to see if I could pick up the rest of my luggage at the BUNAC Hostel; however, Bill (hostel manager with access to my luggage) was not around, so we decided to stop by Olivelli's Restaurant for a drink. To our pleasant surprise, there was a movie filming going on at the Fill Station (gas station) kitty-corner to the BUNAC Hostel and the restaurant at which we were sitting.

It turns out that the movie being filmed was "An Education" with Emma Thompson and Alfred Molina, written by Nick Hornby. It was quite a sight to see and exciting to have seen two filmings in one day with famous actors that I recognized. Unfortunately, I didn't get any autographs, but I was okay with that.

After watching the filming a bit and finishing our Irish coffees, I got the remainder of my things from Bill at the hostel, said farewell and then Mom and I headed back out to Hammersmith to our hostel for the night. It was another fun-filled, adventurous day in London.