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Published: January 24th 2009
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Double Decker Bus
classic London... Amanda and I spent a couple of days in London before returning to Billericay for Christmas.
Our first day in London we walked to the Tate Modern art museum from our hostel and saw many interesting works of art. I really liked it, but I think Amanda was just putting on a brave face for me, I know she really doesn’t like that kind of stuff—what a wonderful sister, huh? After the Tate Modern we walked along the Thames River and saw the recreation of the Globe Theater, Camden area, London Bridge (long ago the only entrance into the gated London City), and Tower Bridge. We sat down for a picnic along the way and were almost accosted by pigeons! I don’t know why that surprised me. While walking near Tower Bridge we saw the HMS Belfast and the recreation of Sir Francis Drake’s Galleon. After crossing the tower Bridge we went and saw the Tower of London, the fortress that is located inside inner London. It has been used for protection for thousands of years! Inside the Tower we were able to see the Crown Jewels (large sparkly diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and much more!), armor, weapons, the Tower Ravens,
Future School?
mom I'm moving to england to go here...later you will see a picture of my future house... and the place where Ann Boleyn was executed. It is a pretty large complex and has different exhibits located inside each different tower of the fortress wall.
After visiting Tower of London we made our way to Fleet Street hoping to see the demon barber, Sweeny Todd, but no such luck. We also saw St. Paul’s Cathedral where they were about to host evening choral choir, we drank some coffee then continued along Fleet Street to Trafalgar Square. (On the way we saw Twining’s Tea Company, for those who are tea fans…) We didn’t spend much time in Trafalgar that night because we planned to come back later, so we continued along to Buckingham Palace to scout out where we needed to go for the Changing of the Guard the next morning. We only got really lost one time that day! I was actually kind of proud of our navigational skills! We got lost trying to improve our shot glass collections by trying to find the London Hard Rock. We did find it but only after walking around for about 45 minutes. The last thing we did on our first day in London was go to the German Christmas
Always Polite...
not sure if this is a construction zone or just part of the exhibit, but it is outside the Tate Modern festival in Hyde Park. It was pretty cool because there was a lot of typical German food and many stalls selling gifts for the holidays. Oh dang it I forgot…we did get lost a second time… in Westminster. There is a residential area that just jumped out of no where on our way back and we kind of got lost again for awhile. But the great thing about getting lost is you end up seeing so many things you never planned on!
The second day in London we got up and walked across Westminster bridge right next to the Parliament building and Big Ben in order to walk to Buckingham Palace to watch the Changing of the Guard. On our way there we walked through St. James Park and I picked out my future house among the many row houses. We arrived about an hour early in order to get a good place and we ended up standing next to the fence near one of the gates. I think it was a pretty good spot; we were able to take many videos. The Changing of the Guard was an elaborate ceremony of horses, a marching band, and gun twirls.
After, we back-tracked to Westminster Abbey to take some photos of the outside and tried to go to the Florence Nightingale Museum, but it was closed for the holiday season. Next we walked to the British Museum via Trafalgar Square, so we stopped to see the Christmas tree that was placed in the square and then went to see the Rosetta Stone. In the British Museum we saw a great Egyptian exhibit including the Rosetta Stone, mummies, hieroglyphs, and sarcophagi. There was also a great Etruscan and Greek exhibit including the friezes from the Pantheon.
We left London on the 24th to go back to Dunbar’s for Christmas and spent the next 4 days in Billericay. We celebrated Christmas in style with a nice roast and English “crackers” (little gifts that you have to pull open and they have a prize inside). We also watched Mamma Mia together before we opened Santa’s presents.
PS: I hope you can all name the song that is in the Blog Title....and who sang it.
sorry some of the pictures are out of order, especially near the end because i went through and added some of amanda's photos as well as mine.
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