World Cup, Trafalgar Square, and Royalty!

Trafalgar Square to see the first match of the World Cup live-South Africa vs. Mexico!

with a few of my closest friends...

I don't know where this soccer ball goes after the World Cup or who gets to keep it, but I thought I'd better sign it anyways. ***Cat, this is for you since you asked me to post pictrues of people...you know.

See-- "Becky USA 2010"! I didn't want to give my last name just in case immigration was still after me..haha. really.

The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Check out the ship in the bottle on top of the plinth (Pete, Dad, Zak, this is the plinth we watched online for like 3 months).

Trafalgar square again...

Whitehall Street

These elephants are all over London and each one is different. They are apparently for sale. I don't know who would buy this and where they would put it...

Trafalgar Square

Nelson's Column (at guess where?Trafalgar Square. I obviously found Trafalgar Square very photogenic.)

Admiralty Arch (I think). Leaving Trafalgar and heading down The Mall (just a street, no shopping in sight) to Buckingham Palace.

Admiralty Arch from the other side (if thats what this is...)

British flags flanking The Mall

Bob needed to go to the restroom quickly, so we popped into St. James' Park and found this 3'-0" tall pelican just hanging out next to the restrooms and posing for photos. Yes, it's real! No trainer or anything. He just wandered over to hang out. He even angles his face for you to show his "better angle". so strange...

Experimenting with the camera in St. James's Park

Flags at Buckingham Palace

St. James's Park. So pretty! (Bob says as it's owned by the Queen and next to Buckingham Palace, it's of course going to be one of the prettiest parks in London!)

Buckingham Palace

You can just spot the London Eye and Big Ben through St. James's Park

The Mall (see, there's no shopping...)

Guard's outside of Buckingham Palace (next to red buses and telephone boxes, this is about as British as you can get! :) )

Check out Bob's good camera skills! (Again, for you Cat!)

I like these signs (although I don't always have luck with them. Refer to yesterday's post...)

St. James's Palace (I don't know who St. James is or I would explain that in my post...)

Pall Mall. Dad, this sign is for you. Since I used to play London Monopoly growing up (I thought everyone did), and used to always want this street because it said Mall. However, the street is not really a mall...just fyi.

St. James's Street..I think.

Another elephant! In a rugby outfit! This is the first one I've seen in costume (or uniform I'm sure he would prefer for it to be called...).

Somewhere on St. Jame's Street. Or Piccadilly maybe? Clearly I didn't pay much attention to where I was on this street.

Ok, sorry about the excess of photos, but it was the first day in a week the sun came out, so I thought it should be documented...heavily! I was sitting on Bob's couch in my pajamas watching the Opening Ceremonies of the World Cup in Johannesburg at 1 p.m. (I had only woken up an hour earlier at noon after staying up all night finishing off the Glee Season One dvd's). They kept showing insets of people watching the ceremonies live in Trafalgar Square, so Bob and I decided after they were done, we would get dressed and head that way just to see what was going on as the first game would be shown an hour after the close of the ceremonies. There were quite a few people, but not as many as we expected. Tomorrow when England plays the U.S. it will for sure be PACKED. Not sure if that's where I want to go to watch the game (because I'd rather not have to see the whole game or stand to do so).

Anyways, after getting some photos (just a few ;)), we headed down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace. I felt much more at home with the tons of people who all had their cameras out in this area. Perhaps that also led to the many many photos. We walked along St. James's Park and then turned around at Buckingham Palace to walk towards St. James's Palace which was just one street over-not quite as nice as the Queen's. It looked more like a fort or castle than a palace...

After taking some photos on Pall Mall (expained above), we then headed down a very regal looking street (St. James' Street maybe?) towards Green Park to get to a tube stop to head home. Not much to explain today-figured the photos do it better!

Tomorrow's the big day for England--Go England! (Oh and today marks my first week in London-so I celebrated with a batter-dipped sausage, just like I did the first day I was here!).

Wet socks and such...

Clapham High Street

Clapham Common-check out the guy running that looks like he's about to be hit by oncoming traffic. This is how I feel everytime I cross the road!

Even in the cases where they tell me which way to look...

These flags aren't just to show England pride. They are to show World Cup fever!

So I have to admit that I've been fairly boring the last few days. This enitre week is supposed to be rainy from morning to late afternoon, so I've taken this time to catch up on episodes of American shows that they get over here-mainly Friends and Glee (and some Reaper-bet you don't even know that is, I sure didn't!). As I'm going to be here for 5 1/2 months, I don't feel pressured to cram in seeing all the sights just to get wet socks--which I hate.

Yesterday, Bob and I went for a walk down to Clapham High Street by way of winding confusing roads (not by the South Circular route which I am more familiar with). When we finally got there, I couldn't even tell you which way we went or where on the Common we had landed.

Today, I got a little stir crazy and decided that we should go into Balham to buy me some nail polish. Bob was all ready to let me go by myself until I asked which way got me to Balham.haha. He decided to come with me. It started pouring when we got to the end of the road, so we took the bus (which didn't help my sense of direction as it goes a different route than walkers), and just ran into Boots and Sainsbury quickly. This evening, after raining for svereal hours, I decided to go see if I could find Clapham High Street again. The pictures I posted were from today, so obvisouly, I found it. However, it wasn't pretty. At the risk of looking like a full blown tourist, I haven't taken many pictures, and I refuse to look at my map.

So after quite some time (and following people with grocery bags as they obviosuly just came from the Common), I finally came up to Clapham Common, but not in the same place Bob and I did yesterday. oh well.

If you see a few of the other photos, you will see what else I'm fighting-getting run over by traffic. Not only do I look the opposite way everytime to cross the road, but with all the round-a-bouts, I can't even tell where people are coming from once they tell me which direction to look! Bob says they don't give jaywalking tickets, but that cars aren't really expcected to stop for pedestrains. A few people have even gotten killed while walking on the sidewalk b/c cars don't seem to mind speed signs and just go up the curb.

Something else to mention is the World Cup. Soccer that is (or football for the rest of the world). It's apparently this weekend. I rememeber it being advertised on my Coke can when I got one at work, but that was about it in the States. Well here, it's EVERYWHERE! The Brits are so excited. Every pub has their St. George flag out to show their pride for England during the Cup. On the Common, I saw about 30 different soccer teams practicing like you would see guys throwing the football around in America (and that was just Clapham South Side...). Funny/odd thing is, their first game is against the U.S.A. this Saturday, and as like 5% of Americans could actually care (maybe more, but none of my friends at least), the country will be devastated if they lose their first game, to us, the country that doesn't care.haha. So I guess we'll see Saturday how it goes! (I've been told to go to a pub to watch as it will be a little out of hand, especially if they lose...)