I've had friends clamoring for pictures of London ever since I got back from my England/Wales trip. So I will take the opportunity to add a few of them.
This is Blackfriars Bridge. It was very important to me that I go here, so about the second day I was in London, we went to the Mayor's Thames River Festival (which was so fun!), and walked along the Thames until we reached Blackfriars Bridge. It is an important bridge to anyone who reads the Jacky Faber books (and really, everyone should be reading the Jacky Faber books). This is the bridge under which lives Jacky and her band of orphans in the first book. It is the fanciest bridge, really. Just the sort of bridge you would expect her to pick to live under. My cousins and I planned to come back to Blackfriars to watch the festival fireworks a day or two later. It was a perfect view.
I spent a lot of time taking pictures of graveyard angels. If you are unfamiliar with Doctor Who I can't really blame you, but I fell in love with it just before I went to England. There is an episode where the evil creatures are stone angels. If you blink your eyes, they will move so quickly that in just that millisecond they will have you. Can you imagine how terrifying taking this picture was for me?
One of my favorite places to go in all of the U.K. was Highgate Cemetery. After climbing up a painfully steep hill we reached this amazingly perfect cemetery. It was the kind you imagine when you read books like Wait Til Helen Comes or The Graveyard Book. It was everything a graveyard should be and more. They needed volunteers for the tours, but for some ridiculous reason you have to live in England.
Okay, so I might have gotten a little carried away with the cemetery, but it was SO AMAZING! Look at that crypt-y thing! Amazing! Here's a scary story. They took us into the catacombs where they have cubbies on the wall (about 5X5 cubbies per section of wall). In each cubby, there was a coffin. However, the glass or wood frames had long since been destroyed, which laid the openings to each cubby bare. While our tour guide was telling us this, and showing us the several hundred year old coffins in each of them, I realized that most of the coffins were so deteriorated they hardly were real boxes anymore... at that same time I realized the cubby right behind me was laid bare, and the coffin was decayed away to smithereens. ACK! That's when the corpse grabbed me! Or something...
This is a photo of my cousin, Maren, and me at Portobello Road. What a fun place this was! I wanted to buy every adorable thing, but most of all it was just the atmosphere which was so amazing. That and my cousin, Will, singing "Portobello Road" as we strolled down the lane.
The first place I went in London was Kensington Gardens. That's where I saw the horrific duck pond which was 90% bird poop. However, I also saw the Albert Memorial. This Memorial was built by Queen Victoria (p.s. watch The Young Victoria, it is so good) in memory of her husband... Albert. Surrounding the memorial are these groups of statues which represent the four corners of the earth. America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. All of the statues were amazing, and I have a lot of pictures of them, but this picture is my particular favorite. So began a long string of butt statues that greeted me everywhere I went.
Again, Kensington Gardens was my first touristy bit of my London trip. These gardens are so adorable. You can see Kensington Palace there, which I just found out it is going to be the home of Prince William and Kate Middleton. So... that's pretty cool. I liked this place. So calm and serene. But I can remember how tired I felt while taking this picture. Flying for 2,000 hours is exhausting!
Maybe another day I'll do a post on Wales. That was an amazing part of the trip!
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