London, England - 02/27/17

London we can't make a tour in England without visiting London, it's importance is such that every stop we've made to this point has London as a reference, or stays just slightly before or after London. We are here because everyone we talked to, told us to visit London at some point - "You are touring the whole world ? wow! Since you are in England you better visit London!" - Here we are, the city of the Queen, one of the most important places in the Second World War, one which suffered a lot with it as well, the city with the red two decked buses, the famous bridge and the Big Be~ Elizabeth Tower, the oldest underground transport in the world, know popularly as The Tube and the scenery to many famous films and works, and place to many important events.  London has a long list of great feats, history and cultural contributions. It has given birth to bands such as : The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Clash, Motorhead, Queen, The Who, The Police, and the list goes on and on

Finally in London! There's so much to see and learn here..

- We could really feel the city through this 4K video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8zLJlU_-60

We visit the London Eye to pay for our misfortune in Sheffield (The wheel of Sheffield had been removed when we visited and is now here in Hyde park) and to see the city from above. From here we see the Clock Tower in Westminster. The pod holds all 22 of us + 3 more people. Excited as we are, we don't even notice the 30min revolution.

From the eye we went to the Aquarium. Opened in March 1997 it stays by the river Thames. It has 400 different species of fish and what differentiates it from most aquariums is the presence of sharks.

London Zoo is the oldest zoo in the world and also the first public aquarium (the word "aquarium" was coined here), The zoo opened on April 27, 1828 and now has over 17.000 animals of 760 different species. It has a very large diversity of animals, from Lions to a variety of fish, reptiles, Tortoises, Penguins, Birds, Butterflies, Monkeys, Flamingos and much more. We could almost complete our pet's and mounts collection here.

We visit the London Tube, the world's oldest underground railway, opened in 1863. It has 11 lines and serves 270 stations, totaling 402 km (250 mi) in length. It is mostly used as a fast transport for distances around 3-5 kilometers (2-3 miles) -- But Is it really that fast ? We run an experiment: Half of the Habiticans take the rails and half go on foot, directed to the Dome

We all reached it together! isn't that odd ? - I bet it's just because we are professionals. Asking around, we discovered that the Millennium Dome (now O2) is a structure built for the 2000s, opened in January 1st of the year 2000, in commemoration for the new millennium. It's design is meant to represent the numbers of the clock and the months of the year as well as the days of the year (with the twelve 100 m-/00.6mi /high yellow towers, and 365 m/.22 miles in diameter). It didn't meet the expectations for the project and was closed soon thereafter, being re purposed as an entertainment building, including an arena, a music club, a cinema, and exhibition space, piazzas, bars and restaurants. The structure can accommodate Nelson's Column standing upright and the Eiffel Tower (324 meters tall) placed horizontally.

As suggested, we take a visit to Buckingham Palace, the Queen's official royal home in London, to appreciate the expensive design and decoration and to watch the Changing of the Guard. The Palace has around 775 rooms including 19 state rooms, 52 royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices and 78 bathrooms, a cinema and a swimming pool. About 400 people work at the Palace.

London has more open space than any European city. In between the stops we walked by the Royal parks composed of 8 parks with no buildings and no lakes, but with many monuments to discover. - We all agree this would be the perfect place to go for a run, cycling or to use our rollers. The parks are: Bushy Park, 445 hectares (1,100 acres), Green Park, 19 hectares (47 acres), Greenwich Park, 74 hectares (180 acres), Hyde Park, 142 hectares (350 acres), Kensington Gardens, 111 hectares (270 acres), Regent's Park, 166 hectares (410 acres), Richmond Park, 955 hectares (2,360 acres (9.6 km2)) and St. James's Park, 23 hectares (57 acres)

Before leaving we thought it would be worth it to visit a museum, and London has many. Undecided about which museum to visit, the party split into three groups, one visited the British museum and came back saying - " We went there because that was the place John Harker went to study the vampires, but we got MUCH more than what we were hoping for. The Museum is huge, it's got millions and millions of works, dating from the beginning of history to the present. The guide told us that it was opened in 1759 with a collection by an oldschool collector called Hans Sloane, after that it just kept growing. The sum of all the objects ever held by the museum is over 233 million, though not all of them are open to the public. Today they are kept in different buildings; British Museum, Natural History Museum and British Library, it's the most impressive collection we've ever seen". -One other group went to the Science Museum, and they had this to say - "We went there because we heard of it while we where in Manchester, a guy in Manchester Museum told us that we should visit a Museum of Science and Industry that was merging with some Science Museum in London, we are not disappointed. We learned that the museum came into existence as a solution to the excessive amount of objects in the British collection, which led to the creation of smaller and more specialized museums, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, Natural History, British Library and Science Museum. The museum has a collection of over 300 thousand items, including important inventions such as the oldest locomotive and the first jet engine, as well as a documentation on medicine, also showing a replica of the first DNA model, exhibition of vehicles, spacecraft and new technology. What we found most interesting was the 10.000 year clock, or "Clock of the Long now" which is design to tick only once a year for 10.000 years. Actually it displays the century on the century hand and a cuckoo comes out once every millennium." - The last group went to London Museum and came back saying - "We went to London Museum because we thought it was the main one, but it was opened only 41 years ago in 1976. It contains exhibitions of London history, including objects form the Great wars, archaeology and the social history of London. Besides that we had a lot of fun with the interactive galleries. The museum is one of the most popular visits to tourists here." - "Now, we all should at least visit Sherlock Holmes Museum right ? We all know the address!"