My Dahlings it is the end of another day here in London and so an update is in order. We were called "my darlings" all morning long by our tour guide. It has been slipping off of my tongue all day. It just doesn't sound the same unless it is with a British accent. Anyway it was charming and I enjoyed it. But I am getting ahead of myself.
This picture was from Saturday night when we hit the road to see a few more sites. London has been very surprising to me. We have been here for 2 days and we have seen everything. So much of it is within walking distance and so we covered a lot of ground on foot yesterday. Shelley is pictured with one of the horse guards. He was quite stoic and focused on his job, just standing there is what his job was. That and being photographed all day.
Then we happened upon the beloved one-eyed, one-armed, Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Square. Not that you can tell from the picture. We were told that today on our tour. The National Gallery is in the background.
Lots of signs so we didn't get lost and knew which direction to head, or not, because Shelley was completely turned around and would have had us heading off to toward Scotland instead of to Waterloo Bridge which we were trying to get to eventually.
Then we headed straight into St. James Tavern in Piccadilly for a little pub grub. It had award winning Fish and Chips and so we decided to give it a try. It was delicious. I just ate mine with the traditional salt and malt vinegar. The atmosphere was cramped and loud but very authentic which is what we were going for.
This is in the pub from our table. There is a doorman that check ID and makes sure that the maximum capacity limits are observed. I saw him turn some people away.
We, or should I say I was excited to see this building. I thought it was Thames House. I guess I was having an MI-5 moment. We were all pleased with ourselves for finding it and then were told on our tour this morning that it is in a completely different part of town than this one. So this is our fake MI-5 headquarters. I thought it was sort of strange that MI-5 had decided to put topiaries out front.
Shelley was pretending to pick the lock of the MI-5 headquarters in the picture I took of her, which is not on the blog.
Shelley recognized this establishment from reading many Georgette Heyers. Apparently the White Hart was an Inn and Tavern. It is the oldest one in London, so the sign says.
View from across the Thames.
This is a view from beneath The Eye of London. It was built as a temporary structure with a five year lease but has been such a hit that they are keeping it up for 25 more years. My guess it that it will stay indefinitely.
Now I cannot help but be a little bitter when I see these pictures. I am going to have a Montell moment and go on a rant about my camera. Yes, I bought a new camera for the trip and have tried unsuccessfully to take pictures with it. I got here and tried to turn it on yesterday and nada. Then again today after charging and making sure the lens cap was taken off in the proper order, etc. Then I finally got it to work for the taking of 3 pictures today and then dead. Everything is going wonderfully here but this small dappening issue that I cannot take any pictures of these fantastic sites with this new camera. I just turned it on and it says that the battery is fully charged but my guess is that by tomorrow morning when I try and take a picture it will be dead and not turn on. That sounds really pessimistic but very accurate in how I feel about my Nikon Coolpix P500. I hope Whitney is having better luck with hers than myself thus far. So we were at St. Pauls Cathedral which is the above picture when I discovered for the 3rd time that my camera was not going to turn on no matter what I did. Tuppence a bag anyone? I think this is where the little old lady sold her bird seed.
Shelley snapped a picture of the interior before she found out that she was not supposed to. So here I am in St. Paul's Cathedral. It was pretty amazing inside. So old, just like everything here is.
St. Pauls Cathedral looks alot like the Capitol does it not?
Here is the front entrance to Westminster Abbey. This is where Kate the Duchess of Cambridge entered on her wedding morning.
The Royal Horse Guards.
Shelley ran like the wind so she could get this picture of them. The tour guide said, "Drop Everything on the bus, and just run!" So she did and got there just in time, and many people didn't run as fast and missed out. We found out later that we were going to see a lot more of these. It was good exercise for her because she had eaten a large breakfast and needed to burn the calories. Shelley wrote that.
We stopped for a potty break at St. James Park which is right next to Buckingham Palace. There was a little garden full of pretty little flowers. I was introduced to Foxglove the first time I came to England. That makes me sound as if I ate some foxglove. No I did not, that would have been fatal. I just admired it and wanted to try and grow some. I have been unsuccessful.
One of the Royal Guards marching back and fort. He had taps on his boots. No kidding.
I, for some reason, really wanted to see The Royal Albert Hall. We were only able to see it on our bus tour this morning so there is a bit of a glare. Across the street from it is a huge golden statue of Albert. It had 6 or so layers of 24 carat gold on it. Can we say excessive? But I am rather fond of Prince Albert so I was okay with this excessiveness. It is not my tax dollars so I cannot judge.
After our bus tour we decided to get brave and master The Tube system. We didn't really master it but we did ride the Underground which is the name of the subway or metro. We took it a few stops to get to Kensington South and then made a change to the Picadilly line and went one stop up to Hyde Park. I had wanted to see the Hyde Park Corner where many of the early church missionaries preached.
We found some amazing rose gardens. There were other flowers as well but mostly tons of roses. Everyone of them smelled amazing and they were in all colors.
Here is a florabunda. We just don't see many roses like this in our part of the world.
This is looking out from Hyde Park Corner to The Wellington Arch.
We passed this shop. It is the House of Mcqueen which is the fashion house that designed Kate's dress. This feather dress did not come in my size and they were fresh out of feather shrugs. Dang it!
Then after the park we decided we wanted to go to Harrods.because it was close by. It is hard to keep the Sabbath Day Holy while shopping in Harrods. Do not judge us.
Here were people having tea in the Harrods tea shop. I am so curious as to how much it cost. The food looked really good, you know little sandwiches, scones, tarts, etc. Nothing to rival our own tea parties at Chez Lizee!
This is a little out of order but here is Buckingham Palace. We were there to watch the changing of the guard. This was hyped up a little too much for me. It basically was a little marching band and a bigger marching band passing by us on the street. There were tons of people there to watch and it really was not that impressive to me.
Then we got home this afternoon and crashed. This time difference has really taken a toll on me. Well dahlings it has been wonderful in London. I can truthfully say I have seen and done everything that I wanted to. Tomorrow we will move onto Stonehenge and Bath. Somemore adventures await us.
And on a more optimistic note. I just turned on my camera and it worked. The battery is juiced up and we shall see if it is going to perform tomorrow.
