London Day 3

This is a floor plan of most of the people's rooms that are in my group. Notice that these rooms are decent sizes

This is the floor plan for the basement where Jami and I are living. Our room is that little odd shaped red one in the upper left corner. Go figure.

This is Kieran. You can't see him very well but I promise to post the picture on Jami's camera that I took of him. It was awkward because the flash was supposed to be off but it definitely wasn't. So awkward. But the reason I was taking the picture-- he looks like Riley from National Treasure. Really truly and he has a lovely accent

This is a toilet. Obviously. Wait, where do you flush?? You just push one of those huge buttons on the wall. The buttons are not always so huge but we have yet to figure out why there are 2...
Last night we went to our first London show.... Les Miserables. After the first act during the intermission I started getting up to leave. Honestly I thought it was over and had the lamest ending of all shows. But then it kept going for another hour and a half. It was good but kinda a strange show. The music was fabulous. Because I bought my tickets in advance I got the seat H11 which is row 8 right smack in the middle on the floor. Could it get any more perfect? Yes. It only cost £20.

This is a statue in Trafalga square by where some of the theaters are. The little guy on top is like a little angel. Liz, our tour guide said that it's not cupid but I can't remember what exactly she said it is.

Again in Trafalga square. Every road in London leads to this square. It's the whole enchilada of everything. Well, not quite of entertainment or party life but the whole enchilada of almost everything

I went on the group tour again with the second group that came in so I got to visit lots of the places for a second time without worrying about transport. This is me again at St. Paul's

The sad thing about going a second time is that when I went Westminster Abbey was closed so we didn't get a chance to go in but we will be going later. For the second group it was open so I was shunned from the group for and hour and a half while they were at WA but I took the opportunity to take some shots of the House of Parliament, Big Ben (which I guess is part of the House of Parliament), the London Eye, Westminster Abbey (of course) and the Thames River. Seen above is the house of Parliament in case you didn't catch that.

Across the street from Westminster Abbey and the House of Parliament is a "demonstration" that has been going on for about 3 weeks now. It's a whole bunch of protesters from Sri Lanka but it was a rather small group yesterday since the leader over in Sri Lanka is supposedly dead or captured or something to that sort. There were probably 3x as many "coppers" as protestors though which I don't really see as necessary. Oh and my tour guide also mentioned that they polled the bobbies to see if they would rather have a gun than just the batons that they carry and they said no because they get more job satisfaction when it takes more than one shot to take someone down. But that is just what my tour guide said. She has an interesting sense of humor although I must say I laugh at most of what she says.

These were some wooden wall plates that a vendor was selling and I don't think he appreciated me taking a picture but I bought one similar to these and a postcard so he can't complain.

Here's a tour of London's fashion. Not really London's but some of the tourists. Londoners are boring. They all just wear black. Black slacks, black suits, black spandex, black shoes. Not very many people wear jeans and if they are wearing tennis shoes they are not like the ones you would see people running in here. They don't really wear t shirts either. I suppose they think it's too cold although I'm wearing a short sleeve shirt today and am perfectly fine. I'll have to get a picture of the typical London male because if they're not in suits they wear sweaters and look like their hair just exploded in a blow dryer.

Another lovely example of a failure at style. This woman in the dress also had on bright red Converse shoes.

This one was a doosy. She's the reason I took out my camera and started taking pictures of these people. I mean, I like the balloon shorts style for materials that are a solid brown or khaki or something but a large bold print? I don't think so.

A lovely picture of me. Some random lady from I would guess Sweeden or something took it for me.

Chase likes this picture. Whoopie! I've always wanted a shot like this. Hopefully my next picture of this building will be at night when it's all lit up.

Some lady who does not speak English took this picture for me. It was an awkward situation but I have yet to realize that lots of the white people here don't actually speak English. There are approximitely 150 languages spoken in the streets of London.

The entrance tower to the House of Parliament. It was supposed to be the grandest part of the building but then they built Big Ben. Fact-- Big Ben is actually a bell tower inside what we usually refer to as Big Ben.

The lovely Big Ben that is not quite really Big Ben. I got to hear it chime 3 times. Amazing? Well yes it was pretty cool.

Here's a side view of the House of Parliament. I kinda felt like some kind of creeper paperatzi (sp??) since I took it through the fence but who cares?

We're going sightseeing today since this is our first whole day off. Tomorrow is an Oxford daytrip. Love you all.