In the morning I walked down to the cafeteria for breakfast, and learned the English breakfast traditions. Either you get a traditional hot break fast, or a continental cold breakfast, but you cannot mix items from one with the other. (i.e. if you want cereal you cannot have toast). They are pretty serious about it, and when innocently I asked the cafeteria lady about what is included with each type she nearly bit my head off claiming "you can't have everything!" So I had a bowl of cereal and nothing else that morning. After breakfast we were off to Trafalgar square to catch a walking tour of the changing of the guards ceremony. We had a sprightly old tour guide, and once the band starts playing they march rather quickly. We almost had to run to catch up. There were at least a thousand people crowded around outside the royal palace to see the ceremony.
After that we hopped onto the big red bus tour. We sat on the open topped double decker bus. The weather was quite warm, and the big billowing clouds offered a beautiful contrast to the pure blue sky. I got some great pics from the bus ride, and it helped me to get more familiarized with the area. When we first approached the Parliament building, and Big Ben I was awestruck. It was so big and the architecture was so interesting, and there I was actually right there in front of it. By the way in case you didn't know Big Ben is the bell inside the clock tower, and not the actual clock itself. I purchased a black and white painting of the clock tower from a street vendor, it also had a red phone booth and a couple under a red umbrella. From there hopped onto a Thames River (pronounced temz) cruise where we learned that the London Bridge was actually rather plain and esthetically uninteresting. The one that most people think of as being the London Bridge is actually called the Tower Bridge, and it was very large and ornate. You can actually walk along the top layer of the Tower Bridge bridge, but it has been fenced off because it used to be a popular place to commit suicide from. After the river cruise it was time for more walking with the ghosts by gaslight tour. The tour wasn't actually very scary, or really all that interesting in general so I was glad when it was over. Especially since we had done so much walking already.
When we got back to the dorms most of the girls were too tired to want to go to a pub, but I was ready for a drink or two. I headed over to one of the pubs closest to our dorm where I was joined by our instructor and her daughter Christina. I met some funny old chaps named Simon and Steven. Simon called me a right old bird (which is a compliment over there) and told me if I ever moved to London I had a job. Although they were both quite "pissed" at the time, which means pretty drunk. We sang some queen songs together, and when they heard we were from Texas began singing Tony Christy's, Amarillo song. I of course had more cider. They tried to convince us to go out with them, but at about 1:30 AM we had to call it a night since we had another big day ahead of us.
After that we hopped onto the big red bus tour. We sat on the open topped double decker bus. The weather was quite warm, and the big billowing clouds offered a beautiful contrast to the pure blue sky. I got some great pics from the bus ride, and it helped me to get more familiarized with the area. When we first approached the Parliament building, and Big Ben I was awestruck. It was so big and the architecture was so interesting, and there I was actually right there in front of it. By the way in case you didn't know Big Ben is the bell inside the clock tower, and not the actual clock itself. I purchased a black and white painting of the clock tower from a street vendor, it also had a red phone booth and a couple under a red umbrella. From there hopped onto a Thames River (pronounced temz) cruise where we learned that the London Bridge was actually rather plain and esthetically uninteresting. The one that most people think of as being the London Bridge is actually called the Tower Bridge, and it was very large and ornate. You can actually walk along the top layer of the Tower Bridge bridge, but it has been fenced off because it used to be a popular place to commit suicide from. After the river cruise it was time for more walking with the ghosts by gaslight tour. The tour wasn't actually very scary, or really all that interesting in general so I was glad when it was over. Especially since we had done so much walking already.
When we got back to the dorms most of the girls were too tired to want to go to a pub, but I was ready for a drink or two. I headed over to one of the pubs closest to our dorm where I was joined by our instructor and her daughter Christina. I met some funny old chaps named Simon and Steven. Simon called me a right old bird (which is a compliment over there) and told me if I ever moved to London I had a job. Although they were both quite "pissed" at the time, which means pretty drunk. We sang some queen songs together, and when they heard we were from Texas began singing Tony Christy's, Amarillo song. I of course had more cider. They tried to convince us to go out with them, but at about 1:30 AM we had to call it a night since we had another big day ahead of us.
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