I See London, I See France

Finally, after working on this post for a few minutes here and there for several days now, I am getting the first of what hopefully should be several posts on our trip to London and Paris. We had such a wonderful time! It's great to be able to go to different places and experience the cultures and histories of those places. I often forget, because we as Americans are pretty segregated from the rest of the world (from a land mass perspective), how much of a difference there is between us and Europeans. Even Europeans are all different from each other.

Another reason it's good (for me) to visit other countries, it helps me to remember and recognize how great we have it as Americans. We really are very blessed. I would not want to live anywhere other than where I do now. God bless America....really.

But, anyway, I am trying to be reflective, not pretentious, so I will move on....

We left Charlotte at around 3 pm on Friday afternoon and arrived in London on Saturday morning at 7 am. Yeah. Our goal was to stay awake as long as possible on Saturday so we wouldn't be jet lagged for longer than a day. We figured the best way to stay awake was to go ahead and start sight-seeing. And so it begins...

After getting a very strong coffee (for me), we headed to Buckingham Palace. I must admit, I had no idea that's even what it was. Steven had to tell me. I guess I was expecting something a little more ostentatious. The White House is prettier. There, I said it.

This is the palace gates. It was very difficult to get good pictures the whole trip....there were soooo many people, it was shocking.














Here we have the ubiquitous palace guard. They did not have the furry hats on, nor did we catch the changing of the guards here, but we did see it at Windsor Castle a couple days later.



















Mounted police. Hooray.

I didn't realize until we were in Paris that I did not get a good shot of Buckingham Palace. Oh well. A quick trip to Google can fix that for you. The pictures would probably be better there anyway. The fountain in the foreground was very beautiful.

This statue was in the middle of the fountain. Or maybe it was in front of the fountain. I don't remember. You'll have to cut me some slack....I was tired.

Here we are. And we look fat. And tired. Believe it or not, I have lost weight. Whatever. We were in front of the fountain and statue.

After walking around Buckingham Palace, we continued down towards Westminster Abbey. It really was amazing. The most over the top church building you can think of in the States pales in comparison to the churches in Europe. They really took their houses of worship seriously. The scale and craftsmanship---considering the tools they had to work with at the time---was truly astonishing.

I have to say, I was not expecting the Abbey to be this big. I'm not sure why I thought it would be smaller...that probably was, again, because it dwarfs even the largest church I have ever seen in here in the US. This picture was taken across a two lane road and a sidewalk the width of a one lane road. You can see the people in line right outside the door, and that should further help you to grasp the scale. Can you see that big splash of orange sticking out from everything else? That's Steven. He pretty much stood out from the crowd the whole time :) He does not look very "European," as they say.

Here we are on the lawn, with yet another picture.

I was trying to capture the height of this amazing place. The front door, or the top of the arch above the front door was about 20 feet tall. (how many meters is that?)

Unfortunately, no one was allowed to take pictures inside the Abbey, and the people that worked there were pretty vigilant and strict about it (i.e. I could not sneak any pictures). So, I was not able to take any photos of all the amazing things inside the main building. I don't feel too bad about that since anyone can view pictures online. Anyway, pictures do not do it justice. It blew my mind to see all of it in person. I am a lover of English history, so it really was neat to see something I have read so much about, and where so many pivotal things have happened.

We were able to take pictures in the Cloisters, which was a 4-sided walkway surrounding a courtyard behind the main worship area. A very nice fellow attempted to take a picture of us in the Cloisters, but we were horribly back lit. He tried. In fact, he tried so well that it took me 45 minutes to figure out what he had done to my camera :) It was nice, though, because it gave me an opportunity to expand my understanding of my camera.

This is picture across the courtyard in the Cloisters. The main part of the Abbey would be to the right.

Here you have a picture of the beautiful ironwork. So awesome.

Here's a picture of the backside of the Abbey......I think. It was very confusing, this whole area. After all, I didn't even realize I was looking at Buckingham Palace. So, no that I have instilled you utmost confidence...

After leaving Westminster Abbey, we decided to head over to Parliament square, which meant we had to head in this general direction....towards Big Ben *eep!*

We were sidetracked for about an hour or so when we saw this place....

Steven and I thought maybe we should have a pint. We also had some fish & chips and mashy peas. They were good, but for all my fellow Charlotte habitants, you can have better fish & chips at RiRa's then I had in London. Just sayin'. I did find, however, that beer is good no matter where you are in the world.

A brief aside. As we walked to Parliament square, we passed some people (hippies) protesting the Iraq War. I thought the Lamborghini (or whatever it is) driving by was quite the juxtaposition of ideals. teehee.

With bellies full, we headed for Parliament. We did the tour of the government buildings. We got see the House of Lords, the House of Commons, which was very, very cool. The tour guide did such a wonderful job of explaining it all to us. Again, we were not allowed to take pictures. Durnit. I did take some picture of the outside. Such a beautiful complex.

This is where we entered and exited for our tour of Parliament. Apparently, King Charles I was executed here in 1649. It was a cavernous room. I will again draw attention to how terrible I look.

Okay, so in the picture above, we are standing in front of a huge stained glass window. Below, the big window is the outside view of the same thing.

Here is a better picture of the stained glass. It was so beautiful.

After this, we stumbled (from exhaustion) our way back to our hotel---and went to bed. Phew. Speaking of going to bed, it is late, and I am tired. I will continue with more posts on our trip. But for now, I don't care anymore, so I'm signing out.