Roseyland

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Welcome to the Roseyland London and Paris excursion day 2. If you haven’t read day 1, you should scroll down and read it first. There is a lot of important character development in day 1, and I’m afraid you’ll be completely lost without it. Day 2 was our first full non-jetlagged day in London. We had noon tickets for the London Eye, so my plan was to walk by Buckingham Palace on the way to Westminster Abbey, which we would visit before the London Eye. Here is a picture of Buckingham Palace. If you could see the flag, you would know that the Queen was not in residence. Apparently she didn’t care that I was visiting. Bitch. Anyways… a few people told me they were disappointed with Buckingham Palace, like they thought it would be grander or more ornate or something. To me it looked exactly like I thought it would, and I was suitably impressed. I also thought it was cool how close you could get to the palace, the gates are only about 50 feet from the building.

These gates are just to the right of Buckingham Palace, and they are the royal gates to Green park, or something like that. The gates are closed, but you can easily go around them and into the park. Apparently they are just closed because they look nicer that way.

This next picture is from St. James park which is a long park in front of Buckingham palace. This picture is looking away from the palace, and you can see the London Eye peeking over the trees on the right and some castle like looking building on the left. I don’t remember what that building was, but I think it has something to do with the government.

This is the front of Westminster Abbey. You can’t take pictures inside, which is nice, because there are so many people walking around the nooks and crannies, that if everyone was also trying to take pictures, it would just be ridiculous. Inside there are a number of tombs and memorials for british royalty and some famous british citizens. Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin are buried here. I love that Darwin is buried in one of the most famous churches in the world. Take that stupid intelligent designist!

After Westminster Abbey, we headed to the London Eye. Here is the inside of our capsule. I don’t know why these other people are inside our capsule, but I thought it would be rude to ask them to leave, so I let them stay.

I wanted to take picture of our capsule, so when we got near the top, I went out the emergency door, climbed over the metal beams, and got inside the next capsule. Then I took this picture. I found out later that this is frowned upon, so don’t try it. Instead, you could just take a picture of the capsule next to yours and tell people that it’s your capsule. I think it was totally worth it though, and this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Here is a picture of St. James park and Buckingham Palace from the London Eye.

This is parliament and Big Ben from the London Eye. I only took about 50 pictures of this building. I think this is my favorite, but it’s a tough call, they all sort of look alike.

After the London Eye, we decided to spend the afternoon at the Tower of London. The Tower of London was built to be a Royal palace/fortress, but it ended up being a prison for political prisoners. Anne Boleyn was imprisoned and executed here in the 16th century. For more information on the Tower of London, see here and here. Also, read this about Anne Boleyn’s trial, final hours, and execution. I find it fascinating. This is a picture from inside the Tower of London complex, not far from where Anne Boleyn was executed.

Here is another picture from inside the tower. The circular memorial is a memorial to all those who were executed at the tower, and it is at the approximate location of many of the executions. The building in the upper left of the picture is where you can see the crown jewels. They are impressive if you are into sparkly things, you aren’t allowed to take pictures of them though.

This was one of the coolest parts of the tower to me. Behind the upper center windows is a cell where many political prisoners were held. They carved messages into the stone walls, and you can still see them today. These are from 400 or 500 years ago, I can’t get over how amazing that is.

Here is a picture of the Tower Bridge from inside the Tower of London. The picture doesn’t really do the scene justice. Trust me, it was cool.

That night we went to see a play in London’s west end. I have to thank @susanisk for recommending Avenue Q. My original plan was to see the Phantom of the Opera, but Avenue Q was way more fun and lighthearted than Phantom would have been. After a long day of sightseeing, we needed something fun and lighthearted. Also, it includes a scene of hardcore muppet sex. Who doesn’t love hardcore muppet sex? Oh, and one more thing, in London, during intermission at a play, they have ice cream. Why don’t we do this in the US? Everyone loves ice cream. Here is a scene from Avenue Q that I found on YouTube. This is a nighttime shot of Piccadilly Circus not too far from our theatre.

And with that, day 2 is over. Tomorrow we travel to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. So get a good nights rest, you are going to need it. You can see more pictures and a few videos of my trip in my flickr set here.