Sunday, December 2, 2007
even more photos!
Here is a picture of Westminster Abbey above the Great North Door. Beautiful! It was even more beautiful inside, but you won't find any good pictures in our set.
Why not? Because they prohibit photography inside Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Terracotta Army Exhibit at the British Museum, and the National Gallery! Lame.
It seems, however, that my camera phone was malfunctioning. Every time I checked the time on my phone (and I check it often) I was accidentally snapping a photo! Oops! I've posted a few of the clearer illicit shots.
Oh well, they can rest assured that my ersatz surveillance shots were all pretty crappy.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Go Go Go Go Go!
Blaine made the further trek to the top of the dome and then again to the tip top where you can see outside. When he got back and we trotted down the steps to the crypt and saw the final resting place of Wellington and Nelson.
Then on to Hamley's, the world's largest toy store (according to their adverts) where there was truth in advertising. It was huge and had a great range of toys and the staff were out doing demonstrations on every floor and even had a good product knowledge range. We found some of the things we'd been looking for and then headed back to drop of our bags. We then went to a Pakistani dinner where finally FINALLY I got gulab jum - neither of the Indian restaurants we went to had it and I love this dessert. After that I realized that I still hadn't finished souvenir shopping (I have a lot of family) so raced over to Piccadilly Square to finish shopping, then out to Platform 9-3/4 to see the Harry Potter monument and then over to Trafalgar Square to get pictures with the famous Lions (which the protest blocked) and then back to the hotel to pack up and have everything ready for getting up at the crack of dawn Saturday for the trip back.
Birds Eye View of Shopping Mecca
The capsule you ride in is a clear oval bubble so that you can have a 360 degree view all the way around (brought to you by the Detp of Redundancy Dept) and it was fantastic. We took all sorts of great pictures and saw a lot and just loved it. It lasts about a half hour and it doesn't feel like you've been on there for that long. You can see one of the really good views of the city we got with a shot of Parliament and Big Ben in it. We got off the eye and headed to Harrods. Ah, Harrods, the world's largest department store and a VERY cool place. Blaine loved the food hall and said (and I quote directly lest you think I exaggerate) "I could shop in the food halls all day". If you think it, they have it and if they don't display it they can get it. They have tons of restaurants, pubs, and bars and that includes a KRISPY KREME. They have a working Krispy Kreme bakery in there - it was kinda off-putting to see in there actually. We ate a tapas bar in the basement and then hit juuuuust about every floor (we skipped the sports floor) and looked and shopped and bought and lugged and I had a pretty darn good time and at least for the food part Blaine did too. He was a real trooper for the whole thing though. After that we went home and crashed for a little bit to try and regain feelings in our feet and then headed out to a Thai place recommended by the hotel staff. The food was good and it was fun to try. They even bring out hot towels to wash off with at the end of the meal. It was a nice meal that we finished off with a trip to "our" pub - I've included that picture too. Blaine enjoyed being able to drink what he wanted and then be home in less than 3 minutes. There truly are pubs, bars, and alcohol everywhere. Last day and it's gonna be jam packed.
Friday, November 23, 2007
flickr photo upload, take two
Fuzzy hats and lots of walking
The Queen, unfortunately, was not in to say "Yo!" to all of us tourists. :( The Palace is big, but compared to a lot of the buildings I've been to and seen it's not that big and not that ornate either. We got a decent spot by the front fence next to some nice people from Michigan that helped push away the VERY rude French lady (seriously the French - evil) from my obviously staked spot. We got there early, took pictures, hung out, waited, got bored, waited some more and FINALLY we heard the music - it was starting!
The little band of interior guards started marching around in some complicated dance sequence and then the band marched up in full fur hats and instruments behind the little band of "new" exterior guards. Then, another band and more guards marched up and then every possible combination of walking around and back forth between the commanders of these groups took place including and formulaic inspection of the guardhouse. The guardhouse is this teeny tiny 3 foot square box with a roof - what's to inspect? But it was cool to watch (for a while) and then, they broke into show tunes and kept walking around. It's now about 12:15 or so and they've been walking (again, just the commander-y people) for EVER and I was done. We left early but I don't think I missed much. So - while it was cool it's way too long so go early, watch for a while and then head up St. James Park to possibly the coolest attraction - Westminster Abbey.
Now, this place already had some favouritism points going for it (my parents met right outside the Abbey) but going inside and taking the tour put it up close/at the top. We got there right as an afternoon service was starting so all the tourists were not allowed in to tour until a little bit later so I got some nice outdoor shots and even one of me AND Blaine at the same time not at arm's length. (I asked a nice tourist guy to help us out ; he had a nicer camera than mine so no stealing - I hoped.) We got in, paid a fee (for a church??) and looked around at this gorgeous building with tons of monuments and marble etc and decided a tour was necessary - we'd never figure out all the cool stuff without a lot more time or a local. The tour - so worth it. We got to go to a chapel on the 2nd floor with a saint's tomb still in it that has been around since the 1600s (how cool is that!) and saw dead kings (3 or 4 of them) and dead queends (5 or 6 of them) and walked on graves (seriously - buried in the church floor - freaky weird to me) and heard all sorts of stories and history and cool little tidbits. For example, if a necromancer really wanted to screw with London he should just go to Westminster Abbey and raise the 3000 people buried in that place. Zombies would ABOUND! It certainly explained all the London based zombie movies to me. We finished our tour with our verger (he tried to say that Wesminster was the oldest religious site - ha! the Vatican (or St. Peter's Basilica has been around since the 400's - Vatican wins and Catholics rule!! (although the Basilica there now was built in 1506). It still rocked is cool and a must see in London - after that we ate pizza (I know, we're in London and eating pizza but it was good London pizza) and collapsed back at the CopperDay ranch (i.e. the hotel) for some rest. Thursday brings on The London Eye and Harrods a.k.a. shopping Mecca.
PS - the fee at the Abbey was for upkeep. They're considered a royal Peculiar, their official title, as such receive no money from a Church, the State, or the Crown. It's all donations and fees.
Editor's comment: No non-Catholics were harmed in the Catholics rule portion of this blog. However, there has been some Catholic mockage. ;)
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
British Museum
However, they limit ticket sales and the first available time for us was 3:20 p.m. which became a non-issue on the whole day there plan. We saw mummies and the Saxon Hoo treasure and the Elgin marbles (thief or saviour - you be the judge) and the Enlightment stuff and all sorts of rugs, textiles, jewelry, stuff and even Harry Potter coins in the money room. We hit cool things meltdown about 2:30 and were tired of the Eygptians and mummies and things that make you hmmm or awe. That gave us time to grab museum lunch (Brie for lunch in a museum cafeteria - cool!) before we hit the Terracotta dudes.
Blaine is the one that really wanted to see this event and I'm glad he did - it's was incredible and worth the price of admission. (Oh yeah, some special exhibits are for pay at EVERY "free" musuem) What a 13 year old accomplished is insane - JUST his burial mound inlcluded hundreds of figures including an army, in formation, of terracotta guys, some even still having their original paint and individual faces. And the First Emperor forced his guys to invent crossbow and chariot interchangeable parts CENTURIES before Eli Whitney pretended to be the first to apply it. So there!! Unfortunately, this particular exhibit was a no photo zone (grrrr!) and the sneaky phone camera guy's image (that's Blaine's no photo nick) is too blurry to post.
Get thee to the British Museum! I'll leave you with my favorite Blaine photo from the British Museum - I bet you guys will like it too (for those that haven't been to the flickr acct - it's posted there too).
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Tower of London
When we finished up, including visiting about 17 of the gift shops on the grounds, we leisurely strolled toward our pre-picked lunch location; slowly but surely we're working through timing and best meal values etc. Here's a cute pic of us with Tower Bridge (see Kris we really ARE in London!) Concerning food - we have been using the Zagat's book for restaurant recommendations and while the places they recommend are good the food is PRICEY (although lunches are pretty decent when price-fixed). After re-fueling we headed to St. Paul's - we got there after the tours finished so we got some exterior shots, and got to hear some of the Evensong which was also pretty cool. Dinner was a "curry house" right up the road where you have to PAY EXTRA FOR RICE. It's the teeny differences that kinda shock me. Why would they think Korma would be good without rice?? On to Day 4 and the British Museum!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
the WORLD closes early on Sundays
(This is from the porch, if such a Kentucky word can work here from the National Gallery).
After the gallery we hoofed to the Albert Victoria museum of weird stuff that could be art and could be crap. The last part is my personal add-on. Some parts were completely oh, let's say not my particular taste (seriously, one woman's art was to cover a screw with precious metal and put it in a wall) some were really very interesting (the rug from Turkey was COOL) and some were just awe-inspiring; like the plaster casts of famous cool stuff.
This is Trajan's column from Rome; full-size and copied in the early 1800's - this whole room was plaster casts of stuff from everywhere that are cool and the plaster casts are older than most of the stuff in our neck of the woods. It was by far our favorite room. After that we headed out to Indian food (another must do) and then to our neighborhood pub for a pint and a wind-down. We've adjusted to London time and we're getting ready for bed so we can do the Tower of London and St. Paul's Cathedral tomorrow. It's odd; in a restaurant or museum it's easy to think that you could be in any urban area but step outside the doors and POOF - London. I'll be interested to see what happens tomorrow at some quintessential London hotspots. So good night, so long, and until tomorrow gentle readers!
CopperDays and the 5 Dwarfs
Yeah! We're so excited; we're so willing, we're so ready we're so...not going on that thing. The line was approximately 4 hours long. I've read that Brits see a queue and join it but I had never seen it in action. At that point we pulled out a map and using Dopey's advice decided to walk to the Millenium bridge (which is about 3 - 5 miles away; Dopey can't read maps). It started raining on the walk and while we found this super cool book fair (CHEAP books and cool titles; a little piece of Heaven) we got hungry, found Grumpy, re-read the map to find out we were REALLY far away and went looking for dinner and home. We got fish and chips at the Fishcoteque (seriously) which were good and came back. We rested for a bit and then went out on the night version of our own Tower Bridge tour that Darren's already posted about. :)
More testing (but more pictures!)
So maybe I'll try a more interesting image here. Here is Tower Bridge. We walked over it Saturday night, in a successful attempt to stave off a jetlagged-induced early bedtime of 6pm.
It was a great move. The night was a bit drizzly and cold but the bridge was beautiful. We had a few pints and dessert at a Wetherspoon pub we found on the other side of the river. Sleep was postponed until the much more decent hour of 22:00 GMT.
Tomorrow we're actually going to visit the Tower Bridge museuem, the Tower of London, and St. Paul's Cathedral.
testing out image uploads
This is not a very amazing picture. I was just amused to see Budweiser in the world beers section. Plus I'd had a few other beers (and recently at that) when I found this amusing. So there! Drink enough to be amused and hold on for better stories and pictures!
Saturday, November 17, 2007
We're Here
Friday, November 16, 2007
So long for now!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
A better kind of Gates
In less than 24 hours I'll be hopping across the pond. Woohoo!!
**Editor's Note: This blogger has been infected by mad marketing crackpots which leads to an excessive sprinkling of exclamation marks. Hopefully time in the Old Blighty will fix this annoying predilection. **
Also, you'll note that the blog has gone completely CopperDay - Blaine and I will both be popping on and posting so it's a 2 for 1 deal.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Almost time
Monday, November 12, 2007
My other favorite part of London
(These packets, by the way are the coolest thing ever. The mega-mart of doom (Wally-world) sells little packages that are designed to wash clothes right in the sink. How practical! How fun! How completely useless in the non-London "real" world!)
All of the shopping and prep and pre-packing planning (truly there are lists of lists of things to potentially pack) make this last week more exciting and add little bits of we're really going-ness to the whole escapade. Even though we're leaving in less than a week it doesn't always feel real. For me London is like that fantasy vacation you always play-plan but never actually take except, well - we're actually going. I guess I'll have to wait for the interminable airplane ride to really be on vacation.
Wanna know the best part of London? No cell phone coverage. I am going to be in another country and my phones will NOT work. I will NOT be accessible for work whiners, need-it-nowers, or lazy slackers that usually call and ask me for stuff as opposed to taking 5 minutes and looking it up. I'm not sure how they'll be able to handle it but - who cares? I'll be in London baby!
Truthfully, while the idea of a cell-phone-less life is SOOOO appealing now as Operation Crazy (aka the Christmas sales) has started up, I'm not sure I'll how I'll deal without my 5 th appendage. I might have to glue my cell phone to my head and pretend I'm getting calls so that I'll be able to remain in my comfort zone, my muscle memory doesn't get all screwed up, and the permanent crick in my left shoulder doesn't go away because of our vacation trip sans cell phones.