-Maggie to Kim.
We got up super early.. and when I say super early.. I mean we met our cab outside at like 4:30 am. We took the short ride needed to get to the airport in preparation for two days in London! We only had two days to fly there, see all we could of England, and fly back, so of course it was another packed weekend.
(Early morning at the airport.)
(Only in Ireland would you see beer bottles around like this.)
(In America, there are airport bars of course, but in Dublin, people just walk around the airport drinking. And remember, this is 5am.)
(About to board the plane as the sun rises.)
(RyanAir.)
(Wisconsin girlies.)
(Taking a look at other planes through the windows. Aer Lingus: The National Airline of Ireland.)
(This is Ireland from above.)
(Getting off the plane in England.)
(Julebu excited to be on land again. After the grueling 45 minute flight.)
(Bus ride from the airport to the city centre of London. I got stuck riding backwards somehow.)
(HELLOOOOO ENGLAND.)
(Oh So British.)
(London street signs.)So once we made the trek into the City Centre, we looked for The Wellington Arch. We had done some research before the trip and found the one group in London that does free walking tours. Super cool. So we met in this park at 11, but we were early. So we walked around for a bit and then met the tour group at the arch. After we caught up with everyone, we followed our tour guide on a three hour walking tour of New London and saw lots of big sites.
(Found a random monument to an Australian War.)
(More monuments.)
(Our one group photo in front of the Wellington Arch. Unfortunately, I didn't bring the tripod, Benny, on this trip.)
(Wellington Arch.)
(Lots of people showed up for this tour.)
(We split into smaller groups and were assigned tour guides. This is our guide, Nathan. Hilarious, really knowledgeable guide.)
(Julie and Jenny back there. The guy with the sunglasses and the Nikon is Will- he turned up in a bunch of my photos but we didn't end up getting to know him till that night.)
(These are the Commonwealth Pillars. They have the names of other countries that helped Brittan in some war.)
(Walking down Constitution Hill. This place used to be full of flowers, like TONS of flowers. Then King Charles would come here in the mornings to "take a walk with the flowers" which was code for cheat on the Queen. She found out and ripped up all the flowers so he wouldn't take walks there anymore. That's one solution I guess..)
(Buckingham Palace for the notorious, yet somewhat uneventful "Changing of the Guard.")
(The Buckingham Gates with a girl that looks like Amber in the corner.)
(The Queen's home.)
(The best photo I could get of the guards.)
(See them way in the background? This is why pictures were difficult.. Swarmsss of tourists blocked my view.)
(Pretty.)
(Nice view of the Palace. That gold statue to the left is of Queen Victoria. She married her German cousin when she was 18 and had 9 kids in the next 10 years. Fun facts!)
(This is the next royal palace- this is where the Queen's family lives. Charles, Camilla, William and Harry all live here. But they weren't home. That flag tells us they aren't home. They use a different flag when they are.)
(The famous guards. This is the closest we can get to them. You know how everyone takes pictures with the guards, messing with them? Well two or three years ago, a Belgium tourist pissed off a guard, and the guard slapped him. Surprised it took this long to happen- but now the guards are roped off.)
(Another guard.)
(St James' Place. Not just a spot on Monopoly. It was built by Henry the eighth- the famous King Henry [Tutor.] This entire building isn't really used... it's used for parties and meetings but besides that it acts as the Queen's mailing address, instead of her actual home.)
(So next we found a little guard's stand ... sans guard... and obviously took quick turns in it.)
(Maggie.)
(Trying to speed up things with a pair photo... so considerate haha.)
(Diva.)
(Yeahhh.)
(Pall Mall. It's a really rich, fancy, shopping street in London. Nicknamed the "Queen's Shopping Mall" for its prices.)
(Florence Nightingale statue.)
(Some other statues.)
(Funny story about Trafalgar Square... it's famous for the pigeons the took over the square. When some new lord came into Parliament, about five years ago, he decided he didn't want anymore pigeons in this area. He tried just putting laws in place, but that didn't help the problem. Then he brought in falcons to uhh.. remove the pigeons... but still, a no go. So then they purposely fed a bunch of piegons... and in the feed.. was birth control. Now there are just a handful of piegons left.)
(The National Gallery.)
(A giant ship in a giant bottle.)
(Trafalgar Square- named after the famous Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1825. This was a sea battle and although completely outnumbered, not a single British ship was sunk.)
(St. Martin's Church.. and Will.)
(Another shot of the square.)
(All the roads that lead to or from Buckingham Palace have red pavement.)
(See the London Eye back there?)
(This is some important government building. They covered it in grass so when you are in a plane you can't see the building. Sneaky, sneaky.)
(So pretty.)
(Westminster Abbey, built in 1048. At this time, King Edward promised to come visit the Pope, but he never had time to get away from England. Pope got mad at said he would take away the right of the King to be head of the Church. Edward was like "Noo! What do I do!?" And the Pope was all like "I'll forgive you if you build be the best church, ever." Edward then built the Abbey. And the Pope was like..."Woah.. ok, you win. Cool church.")
(Another shot of Westminster.)
(Outside of the Houses of Parliament, we sat down in the shade and heard lots of stories from our tour guide, Nathan.)
(Big Ben in the distance. Big Ben is actually the name of the bell inside the tower- the tower itself is just called The ClockTower.)
(Nathan uses a volunteer to demonstrate what happens when you are hung, drawn, and quartered.)
(He is now holding up his genitals and burning them in front of him.)
(Big Ben again.)
(Artsyyyy. Ha.)
(Kinda obsessed with Benny.)
(Across the street.)
(The TUBE.)After the tour, it was three o'clock and we were starving. We grabbed lunch at a pub with many others from our tour. We also kept in touch with the tour guides and got discounts on the pub crawl they also run.
(Getting Nathan's help with our map.)
(Got our tube passes!)
(Yeah, not confusing at all, eh?)
(FINALLY got to the creepy, dirty, nasty, will-have-to-do-for-one-night hostel.)
(I love Kim's ass.)And this end's day one in London. The rest of the night was spent Pub Crawling, but I didn't wanna carry my big camera around to the Pubs. Let's just say we had a fun night. :)
