The guards out for morning inspection at the barracks down the street from Buckingham Palace. You just have to love those hats!
Buckingham Palace. See the flag on top? The queen is IN!
The London Eye ferris wheel. It costs an arm and a leg to ride it, but it's pretty cool just to go see it.
London is very windy! Rick Steeves told me to go to the Westminster Bridge, walk half way across and look at Parliament to get my "Oh my God, I'm in London!" feeling. So that's what I did.
Westminster Abbey. The only sight I paid to see. It was 7 pounds with a student discount to get inside. But I think it was worth it. So many people are buried in there! Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I, Bloody Mary, Charles Dickens...
After Westminster I headed over to the National Gallery to see some amazing art! I sort of glossed over the Renaissance stuff since there's so much of that in Florence and I wanted to see something different for a change. The National Gallery had beautiful Monets, Manets, Degas, Suerat, even Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" is there. Since the Queen had her 50th Jubilee or something she made all the national museums free; which was great news for me, since London is a very expensive city and I am a poor student. Also at the National Gallery there were several groups of students on field trips and they all wear the cutest school uniforms I have ever seen. If only I had gone to elementary school in England, maybe I cold have been adorable too!
British Museum. This is me posing with an Egyptian artifact. The British Museum is like taking a stroll through the history of everything, it is huge and houses centuries of British plunder from all civilizations of the world. And it's completely free! There is so much to see there, it really is incredible.
The Rosetta Stone!!!!
After museums, Caitlin and I had Tex-Mex nachos and margaritas for dinner. It was delicious!
Parliament and Big Ben at night.
Hanging out on the Westminster Bridge. If we faced the other direction Parliament would have been in the background.
The next morning I went to for a walk on the south side of the Thames before meeting Caitlin at noon at the British Library.
A recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theater.
St. Paul's Cathedral from across the Thames and the Millennium foot bridge. St. Paul's is the second largest cathedral in the world, but I didn't pay to go inside since I went to St. Peter's in Rome (the biggest) for free.
London Bride is falling down, falling down, falling down. Actually it was sold to Arizona. But here's a new and hopefully more stable London Bridge.
Tower of London from across the Thames.
The Tower of London! I didn't pay to go inside. I wanted to, but it was ridiculously overpriced. ($33 - 16.50 pounds)
After wandering around by the tower I took the Tube to the British Library. There is a room called "Treasures" that houses (among others) The Magna Carta, Galileo's notes, Beatles lyrics scrawled on envelopes, music written by Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, illuminated manuscripts, and Shakespeare's first Folio. I love old books!
The Tate Modern. Yes, that crack in the ground IS art, modern art.
After the Tate Modern we went to the Victoria & Albert Museum of Art and Design. That museum was really neat to see because it had all sorts of stuff. There were paintings, sculptures, fashions, dishes, benches, iron fences, stained glass windows, rugs, jewelry, weapons, and more from all time periods and parts of the world. We wandered through there for a while and then went to Caitlin's host family's house out in a suburb. Her family is really nice and the daughters are funny. Caitlin and I made dinner and then we decided to make a lemon meringue pie. Whipping meringue by hand took us about 45 minutes. I will not take my electric appliances for granted again!
Kensington Gardens. London has really nice parks. I loved the parks there. In Florence we have very few green spaces or parks. And a lot of them charge you money to get into. And the few scattered free ones are very tiny.
The Peter Pan statue! Special prize to whoever can correctly guess my happy thought!
Harrods!! Life goal complete! Although I didn't buy anything and it was really crowded! But you really can buy anything there. It was pretty sweet! There was a fur protest going on outside while we were there. Harrods was my last landmark in London. After this Caitlin and I were completely exhausted so we ended up sitting in Starbucks for about 4 hours because we didn't want to walk around anymore.
London is now one of my favorite cities (which is becoming quiet a long list).
On Wednesday I am leaving for Scotland, I can hardly believe it! I can't wait to go and see "the motherland." It's going to be great!!
3 comments:
HMMMM, lemon meringue pie. Forget London I just want a piece of your pie.
So glad you and Caitlin got to get together. London sounds so fun. We will have to put it on our Europe itinerary. Someday we will have quite a trip.
Love you,
MOM
1. There are actually two flags for Buckingham. If the British flag is up, the Queen is actually not in. It's only when the Royal Standard is flying that the Queen is in.
2. Tower Bridge, not London Bridge. London Bridge is very unimpressive, although I did walk across all three bridges while I was in London: Tower, London, and Millennium.
3. Dang it! I should have actually had a talk with you about London before you going, but you didn't reply to any of my messages. I actually got into the Tower of London for free. The tickets are good for the whole day, so you can ask someone leaving for the ticket, and you can get in for free. Tip: ask the gentlemen tourists, because they're always nicer about it. Like if you ask, they would go, "Of course! Here you go, luv," while the females are more wary and skeptical and generally unhelpful. The Tower of London was actually my favorite thing I saw there. The Yeoman Warders doing the tours are so entertaining and fun; I had a great time. Plus, I got a picture with the first and alone female Beefeater! How cool and feminist is that?
4. You didn't see a West End show. SHAME.
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