Holiday update! Part I, London

Friday 22 March
My friend Peter drove me to London (Epping, actually--where I caught the underground in to more- central London) This day was really crazy because I was supposed to be meeting Sarah at the place we were staying (which I was really worried about--with good reason) but then found myself being a little bit lost in London when the map that google had given me with the address was wrong.  Thankfully I had my phone and called the person we were renting a room from for the duration of our time in London and he was able to set me straight and give me directions to get to the apartment.  I was worried Sarah would be just as lost as me--especially as she had just flown in from Italy--but we ended up arriving at similar times and were thankful to see each other.
We desperately wanted fish and chips for dinner and we found the perfect little place with a Friday Evening special on Fish and Chips with a drink for only six quid. (We tried a lot of different fish and chips along the way and this was probably our favorite or them all) Also along with all of this nonsense was the fact that I had checked my bank account several days before my trip and noticed there were extra expenditures and it turns out my debit card had been compromised--an added stress for sure.  My parents worked quickly to figure it out at home and eventually had to cancel my card--which left with no way of accessing cash and hardly any money. Thankfully my parents had made me get a credit card before I came on this trip which I could use a little. We will discuss this nonsense later on.
Saturday 23 March
Sarah and I both had heard of a little dish called Bubble and Squeak ('Bubble') which we were going to comb the city for (basically glorified mashed potatoes for breakfast with other vegetables in it), so we found a cafe online which offered bubble as part of a breakfast meal and traveled across the city to get it.  We found ourselves at a little cafe called 'Cafe Oz' (which we realized later was amazing compared to some other cafes we ended up visiting) where we had brunch (Sarah was able to get breakfast with bubble and I was able to get lunch with bubble).  It was veryy delicious and enjoyable.  After that, we found a nearby payphone to try to call the number on my credit card to understand how I could get cash.  I was supposed to be able to call collect and I had never used a payphone before...it was definitely an interesting time.  I put in change and dialed the number and almost as soon as it started ringing, I needed to put more cash in.  This call was the most expensive call I've ever made.  I recruited Sarah to help me feed money into the machine as I tried to make the call. We started with my coins and watched as the amount dropped at a rapid pace on the screen of the phone and coins had to be fed continuously.  But I got my answers, but I didn't go get cash right away as I had some still.

We then continued to another part of the city where the Natural History Museum is. There was a long queue to get into the museum (while it was snowing) but it moved quickly and we got in. We tend to like pushing buttons and pulling levers, so when we saw an exhibit that had two levers and asked us to pull one of them, Sarah and I both pulled one each.  The computer then proceeded to spit out 'WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?!' and then continued by explaining that though the directions told us to only pull one lever, most people are inclined to pull both of them (even though Sarah and I each only pulled one, hahah, didn't think of THAT did ya, computer?) That night, we went back to the apartment and didn't know what we wanted to do for dinner so we walked to Stratford looking for a place to eat and finally decided on a chinese place, then took the bus back as it was pretty late when we were done.
Sunday 24 March
Sunday we checked off quite a few things on the checklist.  Sarah had some things on her checklist to see so we went around Sunday morning checking off some of them. We moved along to more central London and saw Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, ate lunch, then proceeded to the London Film Museum.  After that, we headed across the river to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, where we decided we're not great at looking at art and didn't stay too long.
We then headed across town back to near the Natural History museum to the Science Museum--which we found to be really great.  There were plenty of floors and tons of people so we started in the basement.  Here, we began in the home section which was a collection of appliances over time and how they worked with plenty of buttons for us =) and ways to try things out. 
We went across the basement to a special Google exhibit where we got these cards which saved our creations on them as we went around the room.  There were instruments that were played at the touch of a screen and people around the room and around the world could tap in and control the instruments on their computer or on the screen in front of the instruments.  There was another station where you could get your face drawn in sand after the computer took a picture of it.  It was really neat.  After spending so much time in the basement, we went upstairs and quickly made our way through the bustling ground floor and proceeded to the Agriculture exhibit then the very top floor to the Veterinary exhibit (which was so tiny! and all about horses) and the Medicine/Human Health exhibit thing was was veryy interesting.  It was cool to read through about all the developments in human medicine and philosophy and such over the years in all different aspects of medicine and health.
That night for dinner, we went to a restaurant near the science museum and had fish and chips again! And then finished off the meal with chocolate mousse.
Monday 25 March
Monday was our last day in London so we tried to finish up any final things that we wanted to see. We had brunch at a little cafe on our walk into Stratford where there were some definite complications in communication about our orders.  I was also severely worried about cash at this point and we were working on finding a bank to go into where I could get cash out.  We headed to a museum that Sarah found online that was part of University of London--the Zoology museum.  It was very small, but extremely interesting.  The exhibits were composed mostly of skeletons, dissections, or preserved specimens with little blurbs about the animals.  There were also discussion-provoking questions posted on iPads around the museum which I found interesting to read through. They asked questions like 'Do you think it's okay to breed animals specifically to get qualities that are desirable?' or questions about cloning or other things.
After that museum, we decided we were hungry and so we went to the cafe we had seen the day before that was closed to grab a bite to eat (and of course a hot chocolate!).  I can't really remember what we did after that, but we went to the bank so I could get at least a little cash in Sterling, and then went back to the apartment to pack up our things to be ready for the early morning that awaited us for our trip to Ireland!