Day 8:

We woke up fairly early today, and decided to mostly all go our separate ways since not everyone wanted to do the same thing. Carley and I went together, Kyle went somewhere, and I think Jamie slept all day. Not sure!

I’ve wanted to see the Royal Observatory for a long time, so Carley and I decided we would go out and spend the day at Greenwich together! Before we left though, we just had to enjoy the Borough again, so we did. I added my travel plans to the public Borough board (say that fast).

Then we hopped on the tube and headed to Greenwich to see the observatory. On the way there, we discovered that the area also contained the Royal Maritime Museum among other things, so we had to check that out.

The Academy was also there, which was beautiful.

I actually learned a lot at this museum, but one of my favorite things was the outfits 😍:

There were a number of exhibits dedicated to weaponry, navigation, world war 1/2, battle of Trafalgar, and more… some more pictures:

After the museum, we continued on our journey towards the observatory. The observatory itself was actually gorgeous, but what was even more striking were the views of London from atop the hill on which it is situated. A peak:

I fell in love.

We spent quite a bit of time there, and then left for Canary Wharf. CW is what is pictured towards the right of the above photo, where all of those skyscrapers are. It’s more or less like the City of London in that it is a financial center, but all of the buildings are completely modern.

Also interestingly, which I learned from the Maritime museum, that Canary Wharf used to be (as in the name implies) the area where ships would come in and dock and unload their goods for shipment across the Capitol. Also canning, and what have you.

As that purpose dwindled, it was retrofitted to be what it is today. The people who designed it were mad geniuses, as the entire area is completely connected via underground tunnels. And when I say underground tunnels, what I really mean is a super mall 😍

When we discovered this, we spent hours walking the mall. They have hundreds of stores underground, and the area is completely full of people traveling to and from work and going about their day. It explained why the city streets were so empty when we were walking around earlier.

Some pictures:

I was also slightly surprised to see this is where Bank of America, Citigroup, and JP Morgan have their main London offices. The only one missing was Wells Fargo! 😂

After spending time at the mall, we finally made our way back to the Airbnb to rest and relax.

Day 9:

Friday, we awoke to an absolutely gorgeous day:

It was sunny, partly cloudy, a nice 70F, and nice.

Friday was also the day that the vote tally results of the Brexit referendum were released. We spent a good hour or two reading the news and chatting with the British people with us to find out how they felt and whatnot. And then we decided to go to the Natural History Museum — it’s a logical progression, no?

The museum was actually fantastic and had so much to offer. My favorite exhibit was the dinosaur exhibit, where they actually had animatronic dinosaurs that would move and make noises at you. The museum itself was also gorgeous.

We then took the tube over to Westminster, and came upon quite a bit of activity. There were people with signs everywhere, many many people taking pictures, heightened security everywhere, and news crews. Considering the decision to leave the EU has had and will have sweeping effects, it was actually less busy than I had anticipated.

But, in any case, I still had a chance to get myself into Sky News-because why not. So if any of you readers can find a clip of that, I would love to be sent a link!

Some pics from the area:

For the rest of the day, we then went back to the mall we had discovered previously and spent the time shopping. Kyle and Jamie weren’t big fans of this, so they left early, but Carley and I had a fabulous time.

We had one last dinner together, which was great, and Carley bought this wonderful coat from Banana. Which of course I tried to artistically capture for Instagram on the way back home.

That night I prepared for the travel day to come, and spent the last evening chatting with my British friends.