The Knight bus. Hang on tight, kids...its gonna be a bumpy ride -or- Double Decker Bus London 'Experience'

We are in London.
We are going to take a double decker to see St.Pauls cathedral.

We get on DD bus which Jen has verified with map that it is correct route.
And it is.
We settle in and relax... until we realize we've chosen the crazy seats.
Top level, very front. Window from ceiling of bus almost to floor. Its like were standing on a seven foot balcony, with glass instead of rail. These buses have no hood/bonnet (a solid vertical surface from ground, up in front) and as a result, they can economise on space when following other vehicles. Every time we stop, I feel we've crashing into whatever vehicle that is in front of us. I'd open my eyes afterwards afterwards to verify. The sensation lessens, until we get to a part of the route that has trees.
Lots of trees, with overhanging branches.
Bus just drives through branches and they swlop into the window. We stopped ducking the first couple of times and resort to a restrained flinch. The bus we were on was being driven, in my opinion, insanely. The driver, whom I will call Bottle Bottom Leadfoot, accelerated around corners, braked sharply and without warning. We would be travelling a good clip and we could see ahead where it was we were supposed to stop, and he wouldn't actually stop until it seemed physically impossible to do so.
It was nerve-wracking, and yet we didn't move places.... this was 'an experience'. When it comes to being a tourist, an 'experience' is the reason we end up with sunburn, hotel rooms with bars on the windows, chewed on by bears or bedbugs, and lastly/worstly, floating at the bottom of the waterfall getting that perfect photo to complete the 'experience'. It was an 'experience' and we were having it.
With all of this going on, Jen caught the fact that our place to get off had come and gone. She, being practical and an experienced traveller, recommended to get off at the next stop. She started to get up and gather things up.
'Jen' I say (with the tone I employed as a kid to get her to hold the nail while I wielded the hammer) 'wouldn't it be fun to just stay on the bus and go around the whole route until we get back here?'
Jen looks dubious.
The only thing I can figure in retrospect is that I must possess a vulnerability that manifests in my eyes in these situations which prevents people that love me to say no to my dumb-ass ideas. In that moment, despite her very accurate misgivings of the idea, she makes a call and we remain on the bus.
For almost two hours.
Which may have been a pleasant experience, was it not for the fact that the landscape began to look less and less... how do you say... welcoming. There were boarded up shop-fronts. Graffiti everywhere; in fact it kind of blurred into a gang-colour rainbow kaleidoscope as we sped past.
At the end of the route, I was a little nervous. The bus stopped and we sat there. We were in the ghetto of London. Who knew London had a ghetto?
Then it got worse.
We hear BBL tromp up the stairs. We sit huddled at front, the remaining passengers.
BBL: You need to get off the bus.
Jen: We are going back on same route though.
BBL: You need to get off the bus.
Jen: Okay

We get off bus and clear ourselves a place to sit among the discarded needles and used condoms and wait. The hookers and drug dealers started to circle and the man with the stolen watches lining the inside of his trench coat began his pitch. Oh wait, that was a movie I saw once. Heh. In reality, we stood there and watched BBL and the driver of the other bus have a cigarette, as they pretended that they weren't watching us.

I'm sure they were itching to ask whose dumb ass idea it was to sit on a bus for two hours.

Perhaps they were placing bets:
BBL: 'My money's on the one with the map in her hand'
other driver: 'Nah. You mate, are wrong. My money is on the shorter one: she's got a funny look in her eye'