London!!!

Wow! I don't really know what else to say besides I love London! Also, I'm 99.9% sure I saw the Queen!!!

I guess I can try to find some more words to describe our trip to London. This is my favorite city of all that we've been to so far. We were really lucky that one of Daniel's coworkers here in Leeds has a sister who works at a Radisson Blu in downtown London. She was able to get us a really good deal so we were able to go for two nights rather than just one. That made all the difference. There's so much to do in London and if we had to spend part of Saturday morning traveling we wouldn't have been able to do near as much.

Daniel got off work early on Friday (he takes 45 minute lunches instead of an hour so he can leave at 1:15 every other Friday) so we took a 2:15 train to London and got in at about 4:30. By the time we got there it was already dark so we got checked into our hotel, had dinner (at a casino! we didn't gamble though), and then walked around a little bit.

We decided to walk by the London Eye because we knew it would be all lit up at night. The London Eye is a giant ferris wheel that sits over the Thames River.

It's really really tall and moves really really slow. It takes 30 minutes to make a complete rotation. You have to stand still to be able to see it moving.

I love the blue lights. We walked across the bridge and got this picture of the London Eye. The lit up building next to it is County Hall.

Just across the bridge are the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Unfortunately we weren't able to go inside the Houses of Parliament because they're not open on the weekends.

These also look good all lit up (sorry about the bright light in the center).

Big Ben. It was cool to hear it chiming the time.

There were lots of red telephone booths.

I couldn't remember the sequence to go down into the Ministry of Magic, hehe. It did kind of smell like pee in there so I got in and out pretty quick.

The last thing we did before heading back to the hotel was walk through Picadilly Circus. It's just a big square that's very touristy.

There were a couple street performers around the circular steps in the middle. The big building in the background is a Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. I really wanted to go in there but it was ridiculously expensive and I think there's one in San Antonio too.

 It's like a mini Time's square with all the screens.

 Lots of lights, even some that advertise for movies. Is anyone going to see this, Arthur Christmas?

More Christmas lights hanging over the streets.

We caught the Tube from here back to our hotel. I really wish it was possible to have an underground transportation system like this in Houston. It would make getting around much easier. The ones in Boston and D.C. are great but those are also older more compact cities. It was pretty crowded this weekend so we did a lot of standing on the trains. We even heard one local (I'm assuming) standing next to us complaining that she hates tourists. I really wanted to say something like "Why are you living in London then?" or "What would happen to London if all the tourists left and quit spending their money in the city?" but I didn't. Anyways, I didn't take any pictures of our hotel this time. It was pretty much just like any other hotel in the United States.

Our first stop for Saturday was Westminster Abbey. I really wish we could have taken pictures inside because it was amazing. I did get some photos outside.

 First, here's a picture of Big Ben in the daylight. We walked by it on our way to the Abbey.

I love how ornate these older buildings are. You can also tell how much they've survived through the years. We couldn't take a picture of course but there's a room inside that has a wall with a hole in it from one of the wars.

 October was the start of the Poppy Appeal put on by the Royal British Legion. They do a lot of fundraising to help service men and women. These crosses with poppies on them represented people who have died in wars. They were all over the lawn of the abbey.

The doorway as we exited. This where the royal wedding was.

The two towers of the Abbey. This is just above the doors in the previous picture.

After we finished with Westminster Abbey we headed to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards.

The front as we were walking up. It's really big but for some reason I thought it would look even more elaborate and grand.

Then we saw the gates up close. Very elaborate! Lots of gold plating and ornate detail.

A guard with the tall fuzzy hat! Sometimes they walk back and forth and look really funny. They have to do this really exaggerated walk.

Here's another pair of gates for the entrance to the park.

From this angle you can almost see the balcony in the middle where they stand after important events.

This is a circular little plaza with a statue of Queen Victoria in the middle. It's called the Victoria Memorial and according to our guide book the best place to stand to watch the changing of the guard. It's raised from the rest of the road so you can see above the crowds.

We got there at about 11 because that's when we thought it would all start. There were a lot of people standing at the gates and on the steps of the memorial so we didn't have any second thoughts about whether or not it would actually be happening. When 11:30 came around we started wondering. Finally at about 11:45 I went up to the gates to read a sign I had seen earlier but didn't bother to read. It said that the next changing of the guard would be happening the next day of 11:30. We decided to grab a quick lunch and then go to the Tower of London.

The Tower of London is my favorite single thing we've seen so far. I could have spent 2 days there alone. The Tower of London was first started by William the Conqueror. He had defeated someone else to take over the throne and decided to build a fortress to protect himself from the population of London while he established his reign. Future kings continued to build onto to the tower to make it a stronghold and position of power for the kingdom. It wasn't meant as a prison but they did hold prisoners there as well as executions (mostly of wives of Henry VIII hehe). There were rooms there for when royals wanted to stay but it wasn't really a favorite place for them to live. It's also home to the treasury and the Crown Jewels.

They're renovating part of it but this is the view from the Tube station.

This used to be part of the moat. The have animal statues there because the royals used to keep lions and other intimidating animals as the Tower was used as a fortress.

One of the first towers as you walk in.

A catapult! I have no idea how old this is or if its just a replica. We started the tour about 5 minutes late so we don't know if he mentioned anything about that. Our tour guide, they're called Yeoman Warders or, in slang, Beefeaters, had a lot of jokes about the British being better than Americans but other than that he was pretty good.

That's Beauchamp (pronounced Beecham) Tower. You can see a fake archer dude up there. They would have had people with weapons stationed on all the towers in the past. That tower also housed a prison and is currently where some of the Yeoman Warders live. They all live on the grounds.

This is filled with water during the summer months. It was originally how the prisoners were brought into the tower. They would come down the river and then enter through here. Our guide told us that tourists throw money in there so when they drain it during the winter, they collect all the money and give it to the Poppy Appeal.

This building is called the Waterloo Barracks. It does still house some soldiers but mainly its for displaying and protecting the crown jewels. There's another soldier standing guard out here.The Crown Jewels were amazing. Some of the crowns weighed as much as 5 pounds! They were very strict about pictures. When we were walking through there we saw two people at separate times get caught taking pictures. The guards stood by them and made sure they deleted every single picture they had taken since being inside. One girl who got caught had taken a picture of everything and she acted like she didn't know you weren't allowed. In order to get in you had to pass like 5 signs about the high level security which included no pictures lol.

You can see the remains of some of the early walls and the raven cages in the background.

There are 7 ravens that live on the tower grounds. Their wings are clipped so they can't escape. Apparently there's a legend that if the ravens ever leave both the kingdom and the Tower will fall. I'm not sure how I would feel about that if I was British hehe.

This is a memorial at the execution site on Tower Green. There were 10 people executed at the tower and 3 of them were queens.

There was also some torture that went on at the Tower. Guy Fawkes, who was involved in a plot to blow up parliament, was held captive here. He was tortured to gain information on the people he worked with.

Some prisoners held at the Tower actually lived in relative luxury. This is what one of the rooms would have looked like for Sir Walter Ralegh. He was held prisoner for 13 years and his wife and children were allowed to live with him.

This is part of the White Tower which is the center of the Tower of London.  The White Tower was built as a last line of defense. If the attackers ever made it through the initial walls and towers everyone would fall back to here. The entry was raised off the ground so it would have been difficult to get inside. Now it holds a collection from the Royal Armouries. The main Royal Armouries museum is in Leeds but the White Tower holds a lot of armor from kings.

As we were leaving the Tower of London we saw a really big bridge.

This is often thought to be the London Bridge but that's the next bridge on the river. This is the Tower Bridge. I'm not really sure what its significance is but...

...it still looks really pretty all lit up at night!

The next morning we went to Abbey Road to see where the Beatles crossed the road in their famous picture.

The paint looks a little bit different now and there were more trees in the original picture, but its the same crosswalk. The road was actually pretty busy so we couldn't try to recreate the picture ourselves.

From there we headed back to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. We were much more optimistic when we got there because there were crowd control barriers and the road was blocked off. However, we weren't able to stand on the Victoria Memorial as it was in the blocked off area. We found a decent place to stand among the millions of other people there and waited. Finally we saw the Horse Guard come along.

We actually saw them earlier in the morning by our hotel. They must start from somewhere far from the palace. Or maybe it was something else too.

They had the horses trained to raise and lower their heads in unison. There were bells on their bridles too. It was pretty neat to see.

After watching the horses come by we expected to see a marching band and whole bunch of guards walking around. We heard drums in the distance but nothing was coming. We saw lots of vehicles coming in and out of the gates to the palace but they were empty, except for the driver. I was watching them pretty closely on the small chance that I might see someone important. Well, a car that had gone in empty, came out with people in the back seat. At first I couldn't see much but then they turned the corner and it looked like the Queen!!! I couldn't see too much of her face but it was an old lady with the same hair style that the queen always wears. Plus all the guards were saluting as the car drove by and she started waving to the crowd as the car turned.

You can see the open gate where the car came out. It turned left as it came out so I could see the right side of the car. In hindsight, I wish I would have had my camera ready but I really wasn't expecting to see anyone worth taking a picture. Oh well, at least I can claim that I saw someone coming out of Buckingham Palace that looked like the Queen! We stood around awhile longer and eventually a crowd control officer started answering some questions. He said that they were expecting the changing of the guard to occur but they were waiting for someone to return to the palace first. A few minutes later he came back and said that he didn't think it would happen because the Queen had already went on to Windsor Castle. That made me think even more that it was the Queen that I saw.

We were disappointed to not be able to see a proper changing of the guard, but we had more planned so we grabbed lunch and then headed to the British Museum. This museum is huge so there were a couple of main things I wanted to see. Mummies and most of their artifacts from Egypt, and the Rosetta Stone.

Before we made it to the mummies or the Rosetta stone we saw a copy of the Qu'ran.

Mummies!!! I have been fascinated with mummies and anything from ancient Egypt for a long time. The first mummy we saw was an unknown woman. I was actually very surprised that there were no restrictions on taking pictures. I guess they've already been well enough preserved that the flashes aren't going to break them down any more.

Here's a close up of her face. She was actually still covered with linens so you couldn't see the skin.

This sarcophagus was covered with gold.

This is a mummy of a woman named Cleopatra. I had to do some research but this is not THE Cleopatra who is so famous in history. They painted her face on the linens covering her head. She was wrapped in lots of layers and they had a picture of an x-ray that showed things stuffed inside her chest cavity. Sometimes they would wrap the vital organs after they had been removed and place them back inside the mummified body.

This is a very early mummy that was actually just buried in the sand. Also, the fact that he was buried in the sand and not wrapped showed that he was probably from a poor family. They still buried things they would be necessary in the afterlife with them. You can actually see the skin on this mummy. It's kind of weird to think of how old it is yet its still preserved.

The Rosetta Stone. It's bigger than I thought it would be actually.

Hieroglyphics and Demotic script. Beneath both of these is Ancient Greek.

An iconic image of Ancient Egypt. I was kind of surprised all of these were just out in the open. I guess since they're inside not too much can happen to them, but I did see a lot of people ignoring the signs that said not to touch them.

I could have stayed at the British Museum forever but we still wanted to see the British Library and we didn't want to get back to Leeds too late. The main texts on display at the British Library are the Magna Carta and a Gutenberg Bible. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the exhibit. The library also had more contemporary pieces. They had song lyrics written by the members of the Beatles on postcards and envelopes.

Displayed in this case is the "King's Collection." Some of those books were really big. They must not have been very practical back then hehe.

Last, but not least, we stopped by Harrod's! This department store was like a maze and we only stayed on the main floor. I don't think I could ever afford anything in here. We saw a wrist watch for over 45,000 pounds which is almost $71,000! It wasn't even that nice looking. There was also a really cool "food court." Really it was different rooms devoted to different types of food. There was a meat and cheese section, a fruits and vegetables section, and a chocolate section. Of course we had to get some truffles. :)

I'm not sure if its always lit up at night or only at Christmas time but it looks really pretty!

At this point, we were both exhausted. We went back to the hotel to pick up our bag and headed to the train station. We managed to get on a 6:30 train back to Leeds that should have gotten us home at 9 or 9:30. However, if you've read the post about Edinburgh and Scotland, you'll know that Daniel and I don't have the best luck when it comes to the wonderful transportation system in place here. We departed on time but after we made it to the second stop we took forever to leave. Finally the driver came on over the speaker and told us that 5 of the signals ahead of us were out so all the trains were stopped. They were waiting for engineers to get out there to figure out what was going on. We ended up sitting at the platform for almost an hour and half before we finally moved up a little bit. They still hadn't fixed the signals yet (apparently they were in perfect condition aside from the fact they weren't working hehe) so they were letting one train go through the affected area at a time. We were like the fourth or fifth in line. We eventually made it back to Leeds at about 11. It could have been worse though, the train was supposed to continue on to 2 more stops but ended up terminating in Leeds. All those other people had to catch another train or see about getting a bus to their final destination. Even after this, I STILL think that it's easier (faster and more affordable and convenient) to get around here than in the states. That also might have to do with the fact that the whole country is much smaller but whatever ;).

Overall, London is my favorite city so far. I think that probably has to do with me being a big city girl. I think next weekend we might just take a day trip so we have a little bit of time to rest and relax before our trip to Paris over Thanksgiving weekend. I want to thank everyone who's been following the blog so far. I'm having a really great time here but I am starting to get a little homesick and missing all my friends and family. Also, I hope this blog doesn't come across as too braggy or snobby about all that we're getting to experience. I can't even begin to describe how grateful I am that Daniel and I were given the opportunity to come here and that we have the means to travel so much. I know this is truly a once in a lifetime experience and I want to be able to share it with everyone I love.

I'm exploring Leeds little by little so I'll gradually start posting about some of the things I've seen. I still haven't been brave enough to try baking but I'm starting to run out of things to do so I'm sure it will happen soon. :)

Lots of Love!!!
Janelle

P.S. There are a TON more pictures than I was able to put on here. If you'd like to see them go to Daniel's facebook page and check out his album.