We arrived on Thursday evening and spent the night hanging out with the people who were kind enough to house us. Luckily, Allison and Kathleen had friends in London and so we got to stay with them free of charge! Good thing too, because London is expensive enough without having to pay for a hostel. Anyways, we were out and about all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We had a morning flight back home on Monday.
The World Series was on while we were in London, and so we found ourselves staying up into the wee hours of the morning watching it on the internet. As you can probably guess, we were exhausted from it. As a result of the lack of sleep, the days sort of run together in my memory, so these pictures might be out of chronological order (although they're mostly proper...) On to the meat and potatos - caption under picture:
That's me in the center of Picadilly Circus. Now, I had heard the name 'Picadilly Circus' dozens of times, and heard stories of people proposing there, etc. so I kind of glorified this place in my mind. It's actually just a fountain in the center of like a 7-street intersection. Really not much to see... but the area surrounding Picadilly is really cool. Lots of neat shops, gigantic T.V. screens hanging from buildings. It kind of reminded me of Times Square. Anyways, here's me infront of the fountain in Picadilly Circus
Buckingham Palace, and me in front of it. Not much to say here. I unfortunately didn't get a picture of the changing of the guards because I didn't get to see it. The Saudi Arabian (president?) was coming for a visit so the security was very high and the guard-changing ceremony was on hiatus. We got asked to vacate the premises shortly after snapping these photos.
These guys were waltzing down The Mall - which they closed off (that's the major road leading up to the Buckingham Palace) before the Saudi Arabian (president?) came. Apparently the English like to have security with class.
A park right next door to the palace. I believe it was called St. James Park. We weren't kicked out of the park, but there were police officers all over the place since the Saudi Arabian (president?) was coming by.
No significance to this - just a random arch down the street from Buckingham Palace. It has a name, but I didn't catch it. These things were all over the place... the English are big fans of the arch I guess.
Two shots of parliament. This building was HUGE - these two pictures don't even come close to representing how huge this place was. And it was ridiculously ornate, too - as you can probably tell. That's Big Ben you see in the left of the second picture.
There's the most famous clock in the world - Big Ben. I had no idea this thing was attached to the Parliament building, I was always under the impression that it was free standing. Pretty cool at any rate. Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to go in Big Ben or the Parliament building - only view from afar.
There's the Parliament building again from two other areas. The first one is from a random bridge, and the second shot is from Westminster Abbey (which I'll get to.)
We did these two things on day one - also not pictured is the National Gallery. It was a crazy art museum with all kinds of famous paintings in it - the building itself was practically a work of art. Unfortunately photography wasn't allowed, so I don't have any pictures to share, but it was really cool. Read about it here if you're interested.
These are the front and side entrances of Westminster Abbey, respectively. Unfortunately, they didn't allow photography inside so these next pictures are a little lackluster since I had to sneak them. There were only a few places where priests and employees weren't walking around, so I didn't capture a fraction of what I would have liked to. The abbey was ridiculous, everywhere you turned it was jam packed with tombs, memorials, paintings, etc.
Incase you didn't catch the sign - that last picture is the oldest door in England. Amazing, I know. I had to take a picture of it. Built in approximately 1050 AD. Sexy.
The outdoor looking area is from a cloister within the abbey. I have a couple more pictures, but I had to take them so fast to avoid being caught that they didn't come out very well. It really was unbelievable in there though, I think I hung out in the place for somewhere in the region of 2.5 hours.
This is the London Dungeon. It's kind of like a year-round haunted house and more. It was pretty cool. I didnt get any pictures the inside because it was completely dark, so nothing would have come out very well. Basically, you just go room to room and they put on shows in each one about various gruesome ways people died from the renaissance through present day. The Bubonic Plague, the Great Fire of London, Jack the Ripper, various other killers, ways in which people were tortured, etc. Every room has its own little "show" and there are people that pop out at you or try to scare you otherwise in between as you make your way through the rooms. There's also rooms in which the floor, ceiling, and walls are all mirrors (talk about disorienting)and other "fun-house" type things like that. It was pretty cool.
This is Tower Bridge. It's the fanciest bridge in London. I guess a lot of tourists (understandably) mistake this for the London Bridge. Truth be told: the London Bridge is actually the plainest, lamest bridge in the city. And that's not even an exaggeration. The only notable thing about the London bridge is how unnotable it is. The Tower Bridge is the nice one though, and there's a lot of cool things around it. Sculptures, fountains, fancy buildings, shopping, etc. I have pictures of a bunch of them, but nothing is really worth posting (unless you want to see random buildings, etc. In which case - let me know.)
I thought this was interesting, so I hunkered down and took a photo of it. This is actually just a little tiny drainage canal coming from.. .. well, somewhere. I couldn't track down the source because it disappears under ground eventually. But it runs for at least several hundred meters down the middle of the sidewalk like this before disappearing under ground again on the other side. Oh, and you'll notice one of the towers of Tower Bridge off in the distance.
A ways down the river from the Tower Bridge is the Science Museum (that glorious building you'll see in the first picture). That ferris wheel contraption you see is called the London Eye. It's basically a big ferris wheel that slowly revolves (it takes about half an hour for one complete revolution) and gives an amazing view of the city. I had really wanted to do it, but unfortunately the weather just wasn't worth it. It was cloudy, drizzly, and foggy the entire time we were in London and I'm told the view kind of sucks in those conditions. Considering it cost the equivalent of $30 USD, I abstained. That second photo is of a street performer. These guys were all over the place along the river between the science museum and tower bridge. I took a picture of this guy because he dressed up like a Winston Churchill statue, and actually stayed so still that birds were landing on him.
We went to this really high-scale department store called Harrods on Sunday. This place was nuts. Everything from clothes, to food, to toys and electronics. And it was all incredibly expensive and high end. They had an entire room of gourmet chocolatiers. I would have gotten some to bring home, but I asked one of the employees and they said that the chocolate would get 'stale' by Christmas time. Sorry guys. I didn't get to take many pictures because the place was packed, so most of the pictures would have just been people. Curiously enough, the only two pictures I got were in the Fish Market. I guess it's because not many people buy fish in a department store that I managed to snap these shots...
That first one is a FISH FOUNTAIN! That's right. Those are real fish, and they must have inserted tubes in them or something, because some of these fish were squirting water. You can't really tell in the photos, but the top two fish were misting. It was pretty funny. The second picture is just a crazy shark kind of thing. I know, it's weird that the only thing in this place I took pictures of was fish. I thought the same thing when I reviewed my photos. As long as we're on the subject though: In Europe, the seafood section of a grocery store is called the "Fishmonger".
And what photo-documentary would be complete without some of my car pictures!? (Don't worry, I'm sparing you the Aston Martin, the Lamborghini, and the Audi R8 I took pictures of). You really can't tell what's going on in that first picture, so I'll explain it. A bus is sideways in the road, trying to do a K-Turn, and blocking traffic. I have no idea how he ended up in this predicament, but it was pretty funny to watch. It took the guy about 5 or 10 minutes to "Austin Powers" it out of the middle of the road. He would back up about a foot, crank the wheel, go forward about a foot, crank the wheel, back up about a foot.... over and over again until he finally made shimmied himself back on track with the road. The jerk in the taxi who pulled up next to him didn't make life any easier. Speaking of which, that's what every taxi in London looks like. They all look like old gangster cars, if you ask me. That second picture is an electric car recharging at a public recharge-o-meter. I've never seen this before, so I had to take a picture. I spotted a few of these "recharge-o-meters" (I don't know what they're actually called) around the city. Pretty neat.
And I'll leave you with this to give you an idea of the kind of architecture that's prevalent here. This isn't anything fancy, none of these are landmark buildings. This is just looking down an average street... pretty nice, huh? I thought so...
Anyways, that's it for my London pictures. Unfortunately, I didn't snap any pictures of Covent Garden or Leicester Square. Covent Garden was just a big enclave of shops, street performers, food, etc. Leicester Square was in the theater district, and there were a lot of plays and shows going on there. Kathleen ended up going to one (she's into theater) but the rest of us held off because they were so expensive. There was a lot of other stuff to do around Leicester Square too though: shops, food, London's chinatown, etc. All in all, it was a really good weekend - and since I got free lodging, it really wasn't even all that expensive!
Tomorrow, after work, I'm leaving for Galway. Tentatively, we're going to be doing the Aran Islands and then a tour of the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher (which I've already seen, but nobody else has, so it should be fun). So stay tuned for the next installment.
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