A Bike Ride through London!

Robyn's one request was to do the Fat Tire Bike Tour. The Thames one only ran on Thurs-Sat., so we did the Royal Parks one instead.

Instead of bells to let people know when we were coming, we had these little guys who made squeeky bath toy noises. It was awesome..lol

I was not talented enough to take photos while riding my bike, so all the shots you will see are taken while I was not on them. Robyn on the other hand, was quite the multi-tasker.

Break for lunch at Trafalgar Square

All of our squeakers!

This is the back of 10 Downing Street where the Prime Minister lives (basically like the White House). Our tour guide told us the PM hasn't lived there for 2 years, but this was news to me, news to the guards with the machine guns, and the masses of people waiting outside the front gate... Not sure who to believe.

Old Admiralty Building at Horse Guards Parade. We obviously missed the parade of horses.

Also at the Horse Guards Parade. The building covered in vines is apparently a bomb-proof citadel built in 1940.

Our tour guide talking about Westminster Abbey

View of Whitehall roofs from a bridge in St. James's Park

Hyde Park

So after the tour, it was time for some soft serve ice cream with a flake!

Not sure what this was. Looked like a Buddhist temple in the middle of Kensington Park

Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Garden

We happened to take our tour on the 13th anniversary of Princess Diana's death (she dies August 31, 1997). This is her memorial fountain in Hyde Park. It was designed to be like a necklace to express her feminism and be interactive so that people would hang out in the area and not just view a statue and leave. There were tons of families sitting out around the area, and little kids enjoying the cool fresh water, so it seemed succesful to me.

Austrailian War Memorial in Hyde Park Corner to commemorate the 102,000 Austrailians who died in the First and Second War.

So at Hyde Park Corner, they have horse crossings! The buttons are of course like 6 feet tall so people on horses can reach them. We saw tons of horse poo in the road, but where in the world are these horses coming from?

Hold your horses! (sorry, couldn't resist)

St. James's Park-we walked the route the bike tour had taken us to get better photos

View from the same bridge as above in St. James's Park

Horse Guards Parade (on our walk-not bike ride)

A walk down Whitehall

Houses of Parliament from Southbank

So as you can see from this post, Robyn and I took the 11 a.m. Royal Parks Fat Tire bike tour. We started at Queensway, rode through Kensginton Park (stopped at Kensington Palace where Princess Diana had lived, but we couldnt see it as it was being renovated-lots of things are being renovated now so that they are all done in 2012 for the Olympics). Then we did the length of Kensginton Park passing the Serpentine Gallery, rode past The Serpentine (body of water in Hyde Park), through Hyde Park (via Hyde Park Corner), through Green Park, down The Mall passing St. James's Park, and over to Trafalgar Square where we breaked for lunch. From there we did the Horse Guards Parade (which I had never seen, well not recently) down to Westiminster Abbey, then back through the parks to Queensway. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't the worst bike rider in the group- one young kid ran into a wall. However, it was tough work to start and stop at the intersections. Luckily though, we spent very little time on the roads of London as they are CRAZY drivers and riding on the opposite side of the road is tricky!

After the tour, Robyn and I walked basically the intital route through the parks down to Westminster to get some pictures of the sun setting at Parliament. As she was leaving the next morning (at like 6), we wanted to do a nice sit down dinner, but by the time we got to that area, we were too exhuasted and starving to walk anymore to find somewhere. So we ended up eating Burger King at Waterloo train station (Robyn ate a bagel sandwich from somewhere else). So not quite the send-off I would have liked, but man if felt awesome to get home and go to bed that night.

Sunshine at Marble Arch & Hyde Park

Marble Arch

Long Acre Road (near Leicester Square & Covent Garden)

The sun is finally out!!!

To celebrate the sun's return, I took a nap on this hill at Hyde Park Corner in the sun!

I also laid in Bob's garden where these beautiful roses are blooming!

The sun has finally made another apperance in London after almost a week! It's very exciting as I'm ready for summer weather (not Houston summer like 100 degrees) and to take off my jacket! I've been taking small trips out the past few days for errands-mainly to Leicester Square and Oxford Circus. I have come to the conclusion that Oxford Circus may be one of my least favorite places in London. It is always SO packed. I mean even when I get on the tube, I only ever get to stand right in the door and hold onto the rail above my head and pray that I don't fall over when it jogs to a start or stop (not that if I fell over I would go very far except onto other people). I made the unfortunate mistake of going into Primark at Oxford Circus too yesterday. I always see at least 25 people carrying a Primark bag whether I'm in town where there's one, or out by Bob's where there's not. So I decided to try it. Um, big mistake! It was like a cattle heard. I couldn't even move. There were clothes all over the floor because the sales personel clearly couldn't clean up with the thousands of people rummaging for sizes. The clothes were really cheap-cheaper than H&M and about the same style, so I could see the draw, but the que (yes British word=line) to check out was over 50 people long. And it was a Tuesday when school and work were still in!

Today, I went back to Oxford Circus to go to the Nike Store. I popped in quickly, got my World Cup shirt, and took the bus to Hyde Park Corner where I laid out on the hill with a Coke, my ipod, and the sun! Perfect. Made it home on the bus and continued my evening by hanging out in Bob's garden. Not that exciting, but a perfect summer day to me!