Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a baaag.
Back to London. And back to one of my favorite movies. I was singing these songs through out the whole weekend. And I totally had to google the song because I first typed out, "toppens a bag". I then thought, hmmm, I wonder what "toppens" are because it seems as though it should be a currency. After I looked it up I figured out it was "tuppence" and it was an old currency from the UK. Although it makes more sense since they still use pence pieces. So for all these years I've sung "toppins" and that wasn't right at all! Though I do that quite often and every once in awhile I get caught singing the wrong words. When I don't understand the words I just sing what it sounds like to me and after awhile that just becomes normal and I don't even think about it!
Anyway, on to the pictures!
The entrance into the Buckingham Palace area
In front of the Queen's home
The changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. The new guard switches with the old guard accompanied by the band.
Westminister Abbey. It's huge inside with tons of tombs and memorials. Hundreds of famous people rest there from Newton to Darwin to Handel. Handel's Messiah is a family favorite to listen to at Christmas. I saw the memorial to him in the Abbey. It is still an active church and is the place where all of the Queens and Kings have their service of coronation.
The Abbey again. I mean really, who says it rains in London?!?
So when I first looked down and saw these painted on the street at EVERY crosswalk I got quite a laugh out of it. But it came in VERY, VERY helpful. You don't even realize how difficult it is to get used to looking the opposite direction! We all almost got hit at one point or another by looking the wrong direction before walking into the street. It would take a LONG time to get used to driving on the WRONG side of the street!
Part of the Parliament building.
The Parliament building with Big Ben off to the side. This is the view from the back across the river.
There he is people, Big Ben himself. Although really you can't actually see "Big Ben". Technically Big Ben is the name of the bell inside the clock tower. It was named after a senior member of the project crew who built the tower.
We were looking to enter the Ministry of Magic. Unfortunately we did not have the correct coins to get in. Apparently we don't know the right people...next time I'll get in touch with Mr. Weasley.
They too, were unsuccessful. But they look so cute in the phone booth together :)
The original Hard Rock. We waited for an hour in line to get a pager. Luckily after getting the pager we only waited about 5 minutes or so. We got to a point where we had waited for long enough that we just couldn't turn back...so we stuck it out and had an EXCELLENT meal.
Tower Bridge. Not London Bridge, but Tower Bridge!
Driving over Tower Bridge
A guard in the Tower of London. While in the Tower of London we also saw the Crown Jewels. Beautiful crowns worn by the Kings and Queens. There were 2 crowns that each had a diamond on it that was over 300 carats...and I think they were each worn once! Can you even imagine? Unbelievable!
Capitalizing on good ole' Sherlock Holmes. This was a stop on our Ghost Tour that was included with our bus pass. The tour ended up being kinda dumb, so we cut out early and found an excellent burger place for dinner!
And look at this, we found a pub that was celebrating the 4th of July, sorta. They had decorations up at least! They were serving Budweiser, Jack Daniels and hot dogs. We went in the pub and had a drink solely because of the decorations! As one of our guides on the 4th of July mentioned, "we fondly refer to this day as Loser's Day. We got rid of the colony because they were mad about the tax on tea and in revenge, thanks to America, we now have Starbucks, the city's most expensive coffee!"
Kika and I a bit sunburnt and a bit tired at the end of the day...but a great day it was!
Great trip. Okay, that's all for now!
No comments:
Post a Comment