London Day 2 - Walking around London

We woke up on our second day in London and headed straight for Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard ceremony. We had to hop on the underground and then use our hop on hop off bus passes from the day before to take us to the ceremony. We made it just barely!

This ceremony is more of a parade in my opinion. There are lots of guards who march either on horses or by foot into the palace gates to change places. We were able to get some pictures of this but not able to go right up to the gates – it was crowded. Cole and I are okay with doing touristy stuff but the one downfall is that we don’t like to deal with large crowds or arrive somewhere two hours early just to see something up close. This serves as a sanity piece for us, but also means we miss out on some action. Just seeing the ceremony/parade and the opulence of the whole thing is pretty interesting though. To know that they go through this ritual every day and that the guards are given a 24 hour post each time is crazy! I know you just have to stand there but I don’t think I could do so and stay awake for that long. Below are some pics of the ceremony as well as a few pics of Buckingham Palace. The Palace is gorgeous with all of its gold colored accents. It is an old and outdated tradition I realize, but one that I think they should keep at this point.

After the ceremony we headed off to get some grub. By this point we were finally growing accustomed to ordering at bars and providing our own service. Surprisingly though, this pub served us! I ordered a sandwich with cheese, chutney, and onions. What I got was two pieces of bread with butter on them, two huge hunks of cheese, a dollop of chutney, and round picked white onion (not cut up). Apparently I was supposed to assemble the whole thing myself. This was pretty amusing to me since it wasn't what I expected. Cole's meal was much better though. He had sort of a meat pie with peas and mashed potatoes. The peas weren't great but the mashed potatoes were out of this world.

After lunch we started to walk to Westminster Abbey to start site seeing again. About the time we got there the camera died. So....we went back to the flat to charge it. Remember we didn't have a charger yet so we had to charge via USB. I didn't think to do this before I left. Stupid me!

When we set back out we went to the Tate Modern Museum. It is a modern art museum that is sponsored by many large corporations so it is actually free. Cole was interested in going to this as he has read numerous stories about this museum, including an oil exhibit protesting BP (who is one of the museum sponsors). The art there was though provoking and mainly contained unknown artists. There were a few pieces by famous artists like Picasso and Monet.

After the museum we decided to grab a bite to eat. We wandered along the Thames to find a place and happened upon a Greek restaurant called Real Greek. It was amazing. Although the weather had turned cold and rainy by this point, they had a nice covered patio with heat lamps that we were able to eat under and watch the River Thames. The food was wonderful and we got a prix fixe sort of menu for two which included grilled haloumi, grilled lamb skewers with tzatziki, pita bread, a greek salad, new potatoes, dolmas, and a few other amazing bites of food that I can't pronounce or spell!

After dinner we decided to wander around to a few more areas that we hadn't been to yet. We meandered down the Thames and went past the School of London (where Daniel Radcliffe aka Harry Potter went), St. Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgar Square where they have a London Olympics countdown, and a few other stops along the way. We ended our journey back at the Parliament (Big Ben) building to get some night pictures of the building. Although it rained off and on, the walk was full of interesting historical sites. 

Near Trafalgar Square there was an amazing piece of art that Cole was aware of in the area. In case you aren't aware, Cole knows a TON about a variety of different things. This guy surfs the internet more than anyone I know. It pays off in situations like this. GE and the National Gallery created the first ‘living masterpiece.’ They took an actual painting by Van Gogh and planted plants onto a wall in a pattern that would simulate Van Gogh’s painting. It was absolutely amazing to look at. What a creative idea! 

This pretty much wraps up the London trip. We had to get up early the next morning to catch our train for Paris. London was the place we spent the shortest amount of time, which worked okay since it was our least favorite place. It was nice to walk around and see everything we just didn't feel quite a connection to the city as we did to Amsterdam or Paris. We were excited to head out to Paris with all of the romance and promise it held, and it didn't disappoint!