My Farewell #1-Last Day Seeing My Fav Sights

Leicester Square-This theater is where all of the big movie premiers happen (like Harry Potter last Thursday night).

Covent Garden has their Christmas decorations up!

More from Covent Garden

Trafalgar Square

Towards Green Park and The Horse Guards Parade

Not sure what this is, but I think it was a memorial done recently because I've never seen it before. Next to it was a building with a memorial dedicated to fallen Royal Ulster Constabulary.

A walk down Whitehall

The Cenotaph on Whitehall. Remembrance Day (or Armistice Day-Veteran's Day in the States) is Nov. 11, and the following Sunday is Remembrance Sunday. There is a march down Whitehall by war Veterans. The Queen lays the first poppy wreath dedicated to the fallen from the First and Second World Wars and all conflicts after. The Poppy represents remembrance of the fallen in the U.K.

Millions of Remembrance Crosses at Westminster Abbey

One of my favorite views of the London Eye and the Thames.

One of my favorite tube stations (and the most confusing!)

So I went to see Deathtrap-the comedy thriller starring Glee's Jonathan Groff (Jesse from Vocal Adrenaline-yes, this is the only reason I saw it). I was able to get cheap tickets in the Stalls only 7 rows back from the stage earlier in the morning. The seats were the best I'd had in the 5 West End shows I'd seen this trip. However, I was so close, that I could see Jonathan Groff spit everytime he yelled his lines! Like really spit. It reminded me of the Friend's episode where Joey has to play next to a star who spits and he tries to wear sunglasses during filming. The play itself was also very strange. Wouldn't recommend it, but I'm glad I saw it because I would have regretted it if I didn't.

So today I did my last day out in London. I started out at Leicester Square to see what kind of tickets I could get for Deathtrap that evening. Even though it wasn't a musical and sounded a bit weird, I still wanted to see it for the sole reason that a Glee actor was in it.haha. After getting tickets, as it finally wasn't raining, I walked to Covent Garden, then to Trafalgar Square, down Whitehall (where the Remembrance Parade had happened the day before), and ended up at Westminster Abbey to see the millions of Remembrance crosses. It was a very powerful experience. From there, I got a quick last glance at the Thames and the London Eye before taking the tube back to Bob's. I did some more packing (it will be a miracle if it all fits in my two suitcases), before heading out to meet Lauren to say our goodbyes over coffee in Leicester Square before Deathtrap.

I have a little review of the play above. I would have to say it was my least favorite of the 5, but I'm still glad I saw it. It only lasted a few hours, so I got home to Bob's a little after 10, and had more time to pack and realize that my time here is just about over :( I will miss living in London SO much!

Dinosaurs and things...

Horses outside the Horse Guards Parade on Whitehall. They were standing in a pile of their poo....

Currently the Fourth Plinth is occupied by the ship in a bottle. But I liked the writing on the ground better than what was actually on the plinth. I borrowed Dolan's shadow as well.

Natural History Museum

Reminded me of the 'Night at the Museum' movies! Dinosaurs!

Bones

The Great Court at the British Museum

Reflections in windows...

Dolan arrived yesterday morning, so after a quick lunch, we tried to use the good weather to our advantage and see a bit of London. We started out at Embankment and walked acorss to Southbank towards Westminster. We passed by the London Eye, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. Since Dolan has been here once before (many many years ago), he wasn't too worried about seeing all of the sights. Even so, I made us walk to Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, and Covent Garden as I feel they are very "London" next to the Southbank tour. After all this walking and Dolan getting little sleep in the past few days, we headed back to Bob's so he could take a nap. That evening we went for what was supposed to be a short stroll around Clapham Common. Well, I got us lost (surprise), and two hours later, my legs aching, we finally made it back to Bob's.

Today was a miserable day weather-wise. It was pouring and had turned quite cold. If there's something I can't stand (and Dolan too), it's wet socks! We started out at the Natural History Museum thinking we could escape the rain by doing a day of Museums. Unfortunately, Dolan was under the impression that this museum would have paintings, but instead, we just saw dinosaurs and minerals (both at my request-I mean we were already there!). From there we decided maybe the British Museum would be more exciting, but after having it pour on us the whole way there, and running into cafes to find somewhere to eat only to find strange menus and expensive prices, we were exhausted. We ending up eating in the museum cafe, took a few pictures, then headed back towards Bob's, stopping for a bit to do a few errands for me. Not terribly exciting days for Dolan in London I'm afraid!

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.