My Trip to the UK and Ireland, Day 3

Here we are on Saturday morning. We're at St. Paul's Cathedral. That's Robb up ahead, with guidebook in hand.

This here is St. Paul's... It's a big church.

Here's a statue of John Wesley. He's the founder of Methodism. So for all you Methodists that I know, [that would be.. one] .. um.. yeah, this is John Wesley.

This here is a statue dealie of St. Paul.

St. Paul's again.

This here is a crane. It's working on some building. I took a picture cause the crane was really, really tall.

So apparently there's some sort of rule that everything has to be under construction from now until eternity... There was scaffolding on pretty much every building.

Here we are just outside the Tower of London. You'll note, there's more construction.

Ther there is the Tower of London.

And that there is London Bridge.. (or Tower Bridge, if you're being a stickler.)

And that there is a bagpiper.. And he was playing.. a lot.

Across the way was a really weird looking glass building... between the two is the Thames.

Here's a close-up of that bullet building.... I think I took a lot of pictures of it during our stay in London.

This here is a Yeoman [Beefeater], at the Tower of London. He was our tour guide, and he was pretty funny.

So the Yeoman brought us around the Tower of London, and told us all sorts of stories... mostly about murder, executions, and prisoners... [i.e. "The Good Stuff"] This is at the very start of the tour. ["Anyone here from Kentucky?... No?.. Thanks God!"]

They had the guard dudes here. I did not try to make him laugh, because he had a gun.

Here's a clip of the guards doing their thing.

Here's another shot of the guard at his station.

Over there is the clock, and the entrance to one of the museums, I believe.

Weapons! We've entered one of the museums.. and I'm not certain which one.. But the guy at the bag check at the British Museum said that there'd be suits of armor here at the Tower of London, and so I was quite excited...

We've got some giant swords here... we're gettign warmer.

Here we go... Suits of armor, and on a horse too! and super blurry to boot! Awesome!

Hey Hey! I got a good shot of it too! I'm awesome.

It would appear Henry VIII had a very large.. ego.

Here we have an entire case of Horse Helms. Sweet.

Here we have rack upon rack of guns. There were a lot of guns.

Here we have more weapons. That second one in really interested me.... It was probably used to kill people.

Here's a close-up of those weapons. That 6th one in looks really sweet as well.

More Swords, and a shield.

This is is the execution block and axe. They used this to kill people. Here's a note: If they're gonna chop your head off, give them some money, so they cut it clean and quick... Now you know.

This here is the largest suit of armor (maybe the tallest?) There was a Guinness Book of World's Records seal in this case.

Here's another shot of it.. and there's a tiny suit of armor in there as well. I don't know if it was for a kid or a swarf or what.

Here was a collection of old kings' armor and horses' gear.

It would appear it's about 3:40. I honestly can't remember what this is the entrance to.. but apparently at the time I thought it was very important.

There's Robb and Joel ahead, walking through the courtyard. Joel and I had left our packs back at the hostel. (and there was much rejoicing.)

There was a wedding going on at the church after we were done (our tour ended in the church). So a whole group of dudes in full military dress and women with hats were lining up outside.

Here's Joel asking what was going on with all these people showing up.

Here's a clip of the guard man doing a little march.

There's another guard over there... he looks lonely.

This here is the rack. They had a room filled with different sorts of torture devices that they used. Turns out, the rack would hurt a lot.

This here is London Bridge... or Tower Bridge. It seems to be called both.

It did not fall down.

Here's the Thames, and there are some giant boats.

Hey hey.. I'm doing the "take my picture with famous stuff" thing again... I did this a lot.

Then I had Robb take my picture, so I'd know one wouldn't suck.

The escalators in the Train/Underground stations were really tall/long.

We stepped out of the Underground tunner to see this right in front of us.

Here's a look around just outside of the Underground station. You can see Big Ben, Parliment, the Ferris Wheel... all sorts of good stuff.

This here is the London Marriott Hotel County Hall, which sits right next to the Parliment building [Palace of Wesminster], the Ferris Wheel [The London Eye Observatory Wheel], and Westminster Abbey.

Across the street we have Westminster Abbey... but just across we have protestors! Anti-War/Anti-prisoner abuse protestors.

Here you can see some of their signs and flags. There were people sleeping on cots by these signs as well.

The Houses of Parliament/Palace of Westminster. It's quite large, and quite spectacular.

Here's a nice shot of Big Ben. Yes, the really tall clock that's part of the Parliment building along the Thames River is indeed Big Ben.

Here's me and Big Ben. If I look unhappy, it's cause this is like my 6th try to get me and the clock in the same picture, and I was starting to get frustrated.

Now we're walking around the Palace of Westminster. It's quite large.

More Parliment.

Here's a look around Parliment, across to Westminster Abbey, and a look up at Big Ben.

Here is a statue to Richard the Lionheart.

The London Eye Observatory Wheel. It's very, very tall.

Here's me at the Houses of Parliment.

Here's another look around the Houses of Parliment.

Here is Robb, Me, and Big Ben. We noticed that as this trip went on, I seemed to become smaller and smaller in photos with other people. Already I'm starting off a good deal shorter than Robb. By the end, I'm standing up inside his shirt pocket.

Look closely at the red car in the center, by the stop light. That thing only had 3 wheels. That's crazy!

Here we have Westminster Abbey. Spectacular.

This is where they buried almost all the kings and queens, and famous poets, authors, musicians, etc...

They also still crown royalty here.

Wow. What a nice shot of Big Ben. I really am amazing.

Off in the distance is Buckingham Palace. Just in front we have Robb using his nifty new camera.

This here is Buckingham Palace. The Queen lives here.

The street was lined with flags.

That there is Joel. Buckingham is relatively free of tourists, as the changing of the guard was well over by this time.

Here we have one of the Buckingham Guards.

Here's a look around Buckingham Palace.

That cop has a giant machine gun.

That Buckingham soldier did a little marching.

And here's Robb, looking through the menu. Robb and I got a Ham and Cheese pie, and it was grrrrrrrrreat.. and huge. Joel got a Steak Sandwich.. Then we shared a bottle of wine.

The Cork and bottle was right there, next to the Sex Shop. Convenient.

This here is an Underground platform. We're waiting for the Underground to take us to the train station. If you look very closely, on the yellow line towards the very center of the picture there is a mouse. He walked around for a little while, then stood very still when I tried to take pictures/videos of him.

This is a video clip of a mouse at the Underground stop. It's standing on the white line, and really refused to move much as I recorded him.

Here's the Tower Bridge at night. We decided to walk across it before heading back to the hostel.

Here's the view from on the Tower Bridge. Spectacular.

Another shot from the bridge.

Here is a look at one of the towers of Tower Bridge as we walked across.

Here is Robb on our way back to the hostel.

Woo! we're on a double decker bus! Our train wasn't running at all, and after getting a bit lost and confused, we found that this bus would take us where we wanted to go (it was in place of the train while the train was down.) We rode on the top, quite obviously.

Here's me on the bus. And yes, my face shines like the sun at night. You didn't know? You can kinda tell that the top of the bus was empty besides us..

This one is a little better. What can I say? The camera loves me.

This was our hostel. I had top bunk, Joel had bottom. Robb's was to the right, and the girls we met here were staying on the bunk to the left. There was a total of 8 beds, and by the 2nd night at least 7 [coulda been 8] people here..