The group went to the Tower of London, which is a castle, fortress, royal palace and later a prison all in its very long history. We got to see the crown jewels of the royal family and the past royal jewels from other monarchs throughout time. Some of the crowns were huge and weighed more than you could even imagine. There were also tiny crowns, and ones with so many diamonds that you hurt your eyes just by looking at it.

The Tower Bridge is not to be confused with the London Bridge. They are two very different bridges with similar histories, yet so very different all in all. If traffic stopped on the Tower Bridge, the rest of London would feel the effect.

Taylor and I ventured off after the group dispersed and crossed the Tower Bridge over to the south side of the River Thames (also known as Southwark). (Look to London: day 6 for the Tower Bridge, the London Bridge is farther down in this post!)

We ended up walking 20 minutes to get to the Borough Market, walking past City Hall without knowing and a wonderful park. The market has a ton of street food and local vendors, there were lots of vegan food and two vendors selling all vegan baked goods.

The dish I had was basically a flaky dough filled with curried sweet potato with hummus, chickpeas, paprika and olive oil to dip it in. If I could go back to London just to eat this dish again, I would. Street vendors usually have the best tasting food because it’s authentic from whatever region they’re from and is like a home cooked meal. Before I even knew about this, though, i had to inquire one of the shop keeper on which food place I should try. It was pretty hard to find because the market was packed to the brim with people! To re-purpose an old building, the market was built out of an old, run down tube station. They did a fantastic job with making the market look incredible and having enough space for that amount of people. There was every kind of food anyone could have wanted! There were huge dishes of paella, an authentic Spanish dish, to pulled pork sandwiches, even the vegan alternatives! We made small talk with two other girls, who were from Texas – there to sing choir in a competition.

Sadly, after we ate, Taylor and I had to run back to the hotel to rest before our later adventures back to the same area.

London bridge experience was something that was so interesting, and thrilling. The people working there turned history into a walking tour within the bridge itself, going down a flight of stairs in the bridge post. Before that, though, the history part was full of costumes and actors telling us the rich history of the London Bridge. There used to be houses on top of it, build of wood with thatched roofs. The London Fire is what burned down the bridge, essentially, although there were lots of other times that it had happened. After the history, there was a haunted house to spice things up, no history involved here – just scary.

Taylor, Dr. Barner and his wife, Monica, and I split off from the group going to the pub crawl and decided to go to the Shard. The Guardian has a great article on the art & design of the Shard, including all of the answers you want to questions I know you have about it. It’s 309.6 m high and it actually has a partially open top to it to feel the nice cool breeze.

Again, tower Bridge is pictured here along with some of Southwark. The building that is slanted next to the River Thames in the middle is City Hall.

After that, Taylor and I headed back to the hotel so we could get some dinner at a mexican restaurant in walking distance to the hotel. I got a vegan burrito and vegan nachos and she ate some tacos. (Yes they were extremely good, probably the best vegan burrito I’ve ever had to be honest). The nachos, I believe, had pickled cabbage on them, beans, salsa, a little guacamole and cilantro. We sat in the hall together because both of our roommates were sleeping, watched a little Netflix while we ate and raved about our adventurous day.