Day 02

* We still can't upload any pictures because I forgot my USB at home, and Tyler forgot his SD reader at home too (but his parents will hopefully bring the SD reader for us in Gimmelwald).

Today we went to the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey, Horse Guards, Buckingham Palace, St. James's Park the London Eye, ate at Sherlock Holmes Restaurant, Trafalgar Square, and finished our day off walking around Piccadilly Circus.

The Palace of Westminster is in session so we weren't able to go in, but we did walk around the outside of it and got some good pictures. And yes we saw and heard Big Ben chime 3:00.

Westminster Abbey was very cool as it's basically a huge church doubling as a tomb. Most of the royal family is buried here with some effigies of them carved into their coffins. There are also some writers and scientists buried here such as: Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Isaac Newton. Ironically, Charles Darwin is also buried here in a church and Tyler and I walked over his grave (he's buried underneath the floor).

Then we went walking towards Buckingham Palace. On the way we stopped to get a picture of the Royal Horse Guards, presumably Britain's version of the Mounties. Then we walked past Downing Street (where the Prime Minister lives), and passed some royal residences including St. James's Palace.

Then we arrived at Buckingham Palace which we also couldn't go in, but we got some good pictures of the outside and of a big fountain. There was a furry hat guard outside Buckingham who couldn't stop twitching. He should be fired ;-)

Then we made our way through St. James's Park, a royal park, that has pelicans. Yes, pelicans. It also has many other types of birds. The swans reminded me of Ottawa. It also has the most friendliest squirrells I've ever seen. They eat right out of your hand (like chipmunks). At one point Tyler knelt down to take a picture of some picgeons and they all started crowding around him like he was going to feed them, and I feel something on my leg. At first I think it's a pigeon, but it's a squirrel who has wrapped his legs around my leg and is climbing up my body. When I tried to take my camera out to take a picture of it, it ran away.

Then we rode on the London Eye, the world's biggest ferris wheel (or something like that). While getting in line to get our ticket we encountered James Bond/Pierce Brosnan (picture coming shortly). Each pod can hold about 15-20 people and it takes 30 minutes to complete the full cycle. I got some good pictures from the ride, including one of Vauxhall Cross (MI6 Headquarters).

Next, Tyler and I got some fish & chips at the Sherlock Holmes restaurant. The food was excellent and I'll post a picture of my meal once we're able to upload pictures.

We quickly stopped at Trafalgar Square which has a couple of fountains and statues.

Piccadilly Circus was our last stop of the day. No, it's not a circus with acrobats and human cannonballs. Instead, it's London's version of Times Square. It has big electronic billboards and theatres. Seeing the theatres in this area reminded me of Broadway in NYC. Some big stars like Josh Hartnett were starring in the shows. The area was packed with people going to shows or shopping at the high-priced stores.

Tomorrow is our last day in London and at 5:30 PM local time, we are leaving for Paris (a 2 hrs and 45 min train ride).

The weather today was 11 degrees Celsius with some sun, some cloud, and some rain. The wind was pretty cold at times.

And to clarify my very sleepy blog post from last night, the intersections don't just have 4 streets intersecting (which is pretty common everywhere), but they all seem to be diagonally meeting each other and some are one-ways, others are 4-lane streets. It's very confusing. Especially knowing which way to look.