England

As we had only 3 full days to spend in London, and the first was clouded with my jet lag, we had a lot of ground to cover in the next two days. On Sunday, we got a relatively early start and decided to see London and Tower Bridges before going to church later in the afternoon.

Much to my relief, London Bridge was not, as I had been so told in my youth, falling down, and is still fully assembled in London. Contrary to popular belief, the London Bridge, other than being the London Bridge is not that cool. Other than being a place from which to look at Tower Bridge and relive child horrors of a bridge falling down, it is pretty much a normal, nonaesthetically pleasing bridge. The lack of beauty however, did not detir our picture taking spirits however.

Following our walk across London Bridge we made our way down to the Thames river bank in attempts to walk up to see the more aesthetically pleasing Tower Bridge. We however, were of course side tracked by a huge cathedral and enormous doric tower that beckoned us to come climb it.

The tower was built after the fires of London in attempts to beautify the city. For only £2 we were able to trudge up the 311 steps of the winding staircase to get a fabulous view over looking London.

In case you were wondering, 311 is a lot of stairs

Of course, not before we snapped a few photos of our beautiful selves.

This tower is not for the faint of heart... or legs, the 311 stairs up the spiral staircase is intense... I could definitly feel the burn. The view in the end however, was worth it, and we could see most of London.

Our last full day in London started early, with another stop at Westminster Abbey so I could experience the sundial. While we had seen it earlier, the clouds, and obscene amounts of Tour de France fans inhibited my opportunity to fully see the dial in action.

Pic of dial. This photo was taken at 10:13 am... apparently it does not take into account daylight savings time, but other than that, it works fairly well. It works by standing on the line closest to the current date. An as always, I am interested in sciencey things...

After the sun dial I made my way to the changing of the guards. This was a drawn out ordeal, involving the queens guards dressed in fabulous attire, walking back and forth, and the band playng prodominantly American tunes, with such ditties as Staying Alive, the Pirates theme and Copa Cobana.

I'm pretty sure here the band was playing the National Anthem... only shortly after the Copa Cobana.

Their hats were definitly the best part here...

After the gaurd change, Nicole and I enjoyed a leisurely walk through the parks surrounding Buckingham palace.

We took this picture right before some guy came and tried to make us pay to sit in the chairs... nothing is ever free, especially in London.

Also a plus about the gardens (or minus depending on your view), was the many pelicans walking around and swimming in the lakes. I found it particularly amusing that they had signs discouraging the feeding of the pelicans, as aposed to the ever popular don't feed the pigeons signs.

Me and Buckingham palace in the background. Not to shabby of a house for the Queen eh?

Following our jaunt around the palace, we headed to the London Eye, a huge enclosed ferris wheel allowing tourists to see nearly all of London from a bird's eye view, as the line was horrendous we opted to do the Eye first thing in the morning, before we flew out to Rome and instead happened upon a brilliant fountain.

This is me, inside the fountain, it is really fun, we had a few close calls, but luckily, no one got to soaked. There were however, a few sopping children running around... hmmm, the fact that I am amused by the same things as are small children... what does that say about me?

Continuing in our super mature nature, following the fountain, we found a skate park. It was nestled under a bridge, with only a few skaters there, so I didn't feel to bad showing my moves.

What do you think? Quit my day job right?

Continuing in the 'run yourself into the ground' while traveling Europe trip motto, next we headed to Tower Bridge. This bridge, which is much more elaborate than London Bridge (which in all honesty isn't saying much) looks like it was stolen from Disneyland. The spires are great and I love the blue accents.

Disneyland right? The castle, white and blue trim, I was expecting to see Sleeping Beauty walk out at any moment.

Here I am, wearing the bridge as a crown, do I look regal or what?

After the bridge, we rushed to St. Paul's Cathedral, where we attended a service (key word here, FREE to the public... great way to get into cathedrals by the way) for the beneficiary's of St. Paul's. St. Paul's was goregous, very elaborate, and the service was very nice as well, complete with a boys choir that was very enjoyable.

After the service, in a seemingly vain attempt, we hurried to Shakespere's Globe theatre, in hopes that we could buy standing room tickets for the evening show. Of course, since we went 1 hour from show time, the tickets were completely sold out, but as we had not much else to see and were feeling lucky, we decided to wait in the cancellation line in case people canceled. While it did not look promising, we were eventually able to conjure up 1 standing room ticket (for free even, thank goodness for flakey high school students who don't show). Because we had been running around all day, and were exhausted to say the least, this was not a bad thing, as I watched the first half of the show, and Nicole watched the second half.

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Photo of the layout within the Globe theatre

All in all, the Globe was marvelous, while not Shakespeare's original theatre, it is an exact replica, and the standing room tickets are great, you can easily get right up to the front of the stage without much trouble and as long as you can bear standing for 3 hours, are a steal at only £5 (sadly, this is cheaper than a one day underground ticket for this ridiculously priced, but fabulous city).

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Potentially copyright-infringing picture of the stage, close huh?

As is expected, once the show was completed we were completely exhausted. I have taken Bree's place of falling asleep in random places, as I mastered the art of sleeping in subways during my stint in NYC. I happily napped the entire ride home and fell to sleep almost as quickly.

The next morning, before our flight to Rome, Nicole and I enjoyed the London Eye. While potentially another opportunity for London to rob poor tourists, this was a rad way to see London. With a bird's eye view we could easily see all the places we visited, and got a good feel for the layout of the city.

Following the eye we made one last stopover in Trafalgar Square, to get pictures with the lions. The park nazi did her best to keep us away from the statues, but to no avail, we foiled her attempts and got pictures anyways! (which are not on my camera and will be loaded later)

Our last stop in London was to Portobello road. We had hoped to find the riches of ages, but were unfortunate to find that the main markets ran only on Saturdays (it was Tuesday). Instead, we meandered through the open markets (still quite a few) and ate yummy falafal pitas. Seriously, one of my favorite foods right now, if you've never had one, you should get one.

I will write more later, but for now, enjoy the photos...

ENGLAND PHOTOS.

07-07-07... perhaps the luckiest day for the next century, and the day our European adventure began. Two days ago Nicole and I gathered our bags and headed out to the SLC airport to embark on a three week long European excursion. Our puddle hopper flight into Houston went off without as much as a hitch; however poor weather and delays in connecting flights caused concern for our flight from Houston to London. Apparently, a plane from New Orleans, carrying 84 connecting passengers for our flight, was late because of weather, and since weather was less than desirable in Houston as it was, we were forced to wait... fully boarded on the plane, like prisoners, for the connecting flight to get in before we could head out for London. While I was initially quite pessimistic about the whole situation, dreading an uncomfortable night spent in the Houston airport (or a cramped 777 rather, as we could not get off the plane), all was not lost as we were able to take off from Houston and arrive only two hours behind schedule in London.

Upon arrival in London, as happens with international travel, we were immediately herded through customs. I was fortunate enough to get the only grumpy English customs agent, and after she chewed me out for a good while, I was able to sneak into England (not before however, I was fighting Australian flashbacks and quite frustrated with the entire country).

After we gathered our bags and passed through the most non-obtrusive claims/declarations system to date (slowly England was winning its way back into my graces) Nicole and I were faced with a brutal reality; namely, the weakness of the dollar. The pound is really strong, commanding $2.25 US, so needless to say our exchange rate was a less than pleasurable experience. On top of the dollar being worth so little, it turns out London is ridiculously expensive. Just to get a train from the airport into the city center was £15!

Nicole and I upon arrival to Victoria Station in London

Even with the grumpy customs worker bent on keeping me out of London and the ridiculously steep prices, London is fabulous! The city is filled with amazing architecture, art and history. Shortly after arriving, Nicole and I met an old college friend and his fiancé Elodie in the city. We had a fabulous time exploring London during the afternoon, and Matthias made it his duty to insure I didn't fall asleep on the Tube (the jet lag, or lack of sleep rather, was killing me, it was seriously hard for me to keep me eyes open at times).

All of us in front of Buckingham Palace

Along with experiencing some of the traditional London sights, it so happened that the Tour de France race was actually being held in London and while this also translated into loads of people and underground delays, it was overall a cool experience. An interesting point about this bike race, apparently it is a big deal here, who knew? All along the roads where the bikers were racing were loads of people, watching and cheering as each of the bikers passed by. While I am yet to know if people were cheering for particular racers or everyone in general, it was quite a phenomenon to see so many people out to watch the England portion of the famous race.

Seriously, these guys are moving, check out their entourage, complete with police escort and all

Now, not that the racers were not amazing, they were, and they were biking surprisingly fast (it's crazy how less impressive it appears on TV, but they were really hauling). But even so, I was content to watch a few racers go by, and then move on. Apparently biking is high class entertainment here though, as people stood out clapping, making noise with noise makers for the entire race portion (for hours and hours...blocking my view mostly). I don't understand it; maybe I don't have high cultured tastes when it comes to athletics. Either way, my favorite part of the race was this sign reading "Le de Tour France", which I thought was brilliant considering how far out of our way we had to trek because of the race. We hoped the company wrote the logo in such a way to avoid copyright laws...

Le deTour France... at least I think I am funny

Along with the race we also were able to see the more traditional sights.

Apparently, Big Ben is the name of the bell within the Clock Tower. Regardless of name however, it was impressive.

Westminster Abbey is huge! The building takes us more than a city block and is very ornate.

The Cathedral of Westminster is also very impressive with ornate carvings galore.

Our first day in London was a success, we saw much and I was mostly able to fight off the urge to sleep (Matthias hitting the glass helped however). Tomorrow holds more excitement and London adventures, until then...