For my birthday, one of my treats from Sam was tickets to climb the O2 around sunset.
You’ll have to excuse the subpar quality of photos for this post. You aren’t allowed to bring anything up with you besides your cell phone, so all photos were taken on my trusty iPhone 4. I wasn’t nervous at all about climbing it ahead of time. It was only when we got there and were laden down with safety equipment that I began to get nervous. I mean, the more gear you need to do something, the more dangerous it is, right?
Once everyone was suited up and “trained” we hooked onto the O2 and began our ascent. I was a bit worried that I was going to get tired out, or start to feel the burn in my legs, but since you go up as a big group, you stop quite frequently and it ends up not being taxing at all.
Once you’re on top of the O2 you have time to relax a bit, take some photos and enjoy the view. It was a frigid May day, and quite windy but London was looking lovely despite it. Coming down was infinitely more terrifying than going up. Luckily the boots they make you strap on make slipping virtually impossible. Several members of our party felt their knees buckle when they looked down the descent path, but everyone got down safely.
Most impressive of all was that Sam, with his terrible vertigo, didn’t have any fears at all! He said that since the building is so big and solid that he didn’t actually feel like he was up high. (Unlike our time climbing the stairs at the Sagrada Familia.)
