London, in photos (I kill your bandwidth, bwahaha)

So we arrived to London on Friday night after taking the bus in from Luton airport, Balint giggling giddily the whole time and Lyla doing her very best to remain patient. We got a bit lost in Victoria station and finally found ourselves in the proper line to purchase underground tickets and were off to our friend Alfie's home south of the river. When we arrived, he, in true English fashion, was already at the pub, so we dropped our bags and joined him and his friends there for some rugby and ale (aaalllleeee!!) before going back to his flat for a lovely cheese plate and some toast. Classy kid.

The next morning it was up for the most epic day of sightseeing we have ever embarked upon, which will be detailed in pictures. According to the internet, we walked over 10 miles on Saturday (16 km for my Euro friends), stopping to eat, gawk, and take photos.

Our day started on a double-decker bus into town (up top and up front, naturally) and we got off at the houses of Parliament. Which is very big, very elaborate, and, even in late February, very full of people.

It is also long.

I don't know that I have eyes in this picture, but regardless, here I am in front of Parliament.

Big Ben peeks up over the top of the building.

Westminster Abbey is beautiful, craggy, and covered in funny looking statues and gargoyles (the fact that I can now spell that without effort is a sign I've been in Europe a good while, I guess), while maintaining just the right air of disrepair to satisfy my picture-taking efforts. The nearby St. Margaret's Church (formerly the official church of Parliament) was open to visitors, and we wandered in, literally walking on some very famous Englishpeople, and admired the inside for while.

Heading up to Buckingham Palace, we passed a park full of giant, fat, happy and tame city gray squirrels. They were eating peanuts out of people's hands and seemed especially attached to this older fellow, whom we chatted with for awhile. There were also pretty jays that would swoop down and snatch food from people's hands, as well as wood doves that could swallow entire shelled peanuts in a single gulp. It was like the pigeon version of Jaws. I kept expecting them to choke, but they did not.

We happened to wander up in time to see the changing of the guard, complete with giant hats, and much pomp and circumstance. It was also complete with about a MILLION people. I cannot even imagine how it looks in August.

the palace, ta

These are military buildings. I like that the old brick building, all covered with menacing dead ivy, goes right into the pretty red building.

We also saw the horse guards.

Just some interesting building tops, with a double-decker whizzing by.

Balint got mauled by a lion in Trafalgar square (I think he managed to escape)...

There were also some fountains in Trafalgar.

Some cool roof-top decorations.

St. Paul's Cathedral poking it's head from around the corner. Unfortunately, there was no way to get a full-on photo that didn't also involve being hit by a car.

Balint wanted to go up to the dome, and hemmed and hawed until Lyla and I convinced him to go up, and to take my camera. He took this very cool picture from up there and came down all bouncy. Lyla and I opted to stay on the ground and eat amazing macaroons. Mmm.

We walked a bit more, saw some more cool little streets, and then came to the river walk, where we admired the Tower Bridge for a good long while.

We also walked around the outside of the tower itself, but it's frankly sort of ugly. So no photos of it here! Instead, me and Lyla being cute.

On the bridge.

The strange city hall building.

A stream running through the town where we stopped to use the bathroom and I almost got locked in during the automatic cleaning process, which would have been very sad indeed.

The London Bridge itself is quite boring, but the sign is cool.

I just loved this mantis statue fellow.

A church on the south side of the river. A fun angle. Shush about the artsy photos, Dad.

Sir Francis Drake's boat (a replica, where kids can have parties), floating in a little harbor.

A few remaining pieces of an old church.

A colorful bridge.

The rebuilt Globe Theater, where they apparently still often follow Shakespeare's tradition of an all-male cast and floor standing areas.

Just a nice view across the river.

The sun started to set.

We spotted Parliament in the distance. This was exciting because 1. it was beautiful 2. our tour was almost complete and soon we would be eating pub food!

aww

The London Eye, which is very cool and absurdly pricey.

Exterminate!
(Just shut up.)
Beautiful!

I finally get a photo with Balint after a year-and-a-half of chilling with him all day, every day at work.

A cool photo, with the light helping me out considerably.

So then it was off to Oxford Circus to meet our friend Dorota and her boyfriend Liam for some drinks in Soho. First we stopped at a pub and got the not-stereotypical-at-all and damn delicious dishes of fish and chips and bangers and mash. Yum! And ale. More ale. Can you tell I miss ale? Then we pushed through the hoardes of people and met our friends, with whom we had a lovely time. We woke up early the next morning to cook some breakfast for Alfie to thank him for having us, chatted a bit, and then caught the tube in to catch the bus to catch the plane home.

And on the way out, we saw a giant horse's head. Strange.


All in all it was a very enjoyable weekend, if somewhat exhausting. It was especially fun to hear English everywhere, read English signs, make English jokes, think in English, slur off in English... just English everywhere. My brain became a bit less confused about what language it should be in for sure! It was also quite nice for my psyche to see all the diversity of London running about being totally normal after so long in lily-white (or else SCARY!) Hungary, and to enjoy that in the food available, the accents heard, the music playing.

Finally, it was damn adorable to see someone be introduced to traveling and just freak out at all the difference from their normal world. It really reinforced to me how much we are a messy amalgam of all the different things we've experienced, and how different we would all be if we had never experienced those things. It really made me glad to be in the situation I am in, to be traveling and doing all these crazy irresponsible things. Beyond that, it made me appreciate my nomadic upbringing by parents who love ethnic food. I think this life is making me a much better person. If nothing else, I'm really enjoying the ride, and it was quite fun to take a newbie along on that ride for a little while.

On the other hand, I felt a little bit sad. Nothing really freaks me out like that anymore. What am I going to have to do next... move to Africa? Hike through SE Asia? Or maybe just worry a bit less about being cool and just freak the hell out at little amazing things. Step away from the phone mom... you don't have to worry about me doing it today. I have the flu, remember?