London Part 1

We had a real slow start here the first morning, we were all very tired after our traveling from the day before. So we sort of moseyed through the city. We walked from our hostel to Regents Park. At first we couldnt seem to find the park and thought it was really lame, and then when we found it, we were sooo impressed. It was very magnificient. It holds the London Zoo, along with cricket pitches, a boat pond, and tennis courts. Its soo easy to forget your in the middle of a city. Then we wandered down to Piccadilly Circus and stopped for lunch on the way. We walked around the square and by all of the shops, it reminded us a lot of Times Square in New York. Then we went down to St. James Park where we all ended up camped out in the grass, and everyone but Justine took a nap by the pond. From where we were, we could several government buildings as well as the London Eye. We grabbed a quick dinner near our hostel and called it an early night.

Today we started out a bit earlier and went on a tour of the Tour of London. Again we had a really great tourguide. The guides are Yeoman Warders, gentlemen who have met certain requirements through their service to the crown in the army or marines. We learned all about the famous people who had been imprisoned their and how they had been torture and/or killed. It was soooo interesting. They also keep the crown jewels at the Tower (which by the way has 20 towers, not just 1). They were soooo ornate, there are hundreds of jewels in each piece. From there we walked accross the Tower bridge and saw the London Bridge. We grabbed lunch from a small grocer and went to a park near city hall to eat. There is a walkway that spans most of the south side of the Thames from the Tower of London to the House of Parliment, so we walked the whole thing today stopping to check out the Tate Modern museum, where we saw work by Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Dali, and many other modernists. We walked all the way to the House of Pariliment to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Both buildings are sooo grand and its very impressive, though the majority of the house of parliment was built in the 19th century, so it is not as old as one would think, but it looks really beautiful all lit up at night. Tomorrow we are going to try to get tickets to see Wimbledon, well see how that goes!!