London Raid

Derek: Hey all - just wanted to do a quick post on the trip to London that we took today. It was a fantastic day, even though the weather was cloudy and dreary (typical London weather, actually). The Tube, London's metro system, was fast and efficient, but the trains were small and they ran very close to the wall, giving the impression that you were in a tube. Just another example of simple naming conventions, I guess, seeing as towns are named things like Harrow-on-the-hill.


Anyways, one of our main attractions today was the London Eye, which is a 480-ft Ferris Wheel on the River Thames. It was very expensive, but well worth it, since we were able to see most of the city from the apex. The picture above is of us in front of Big Ben - from a few hundred feet in the air. We also saw Parliament, Buckingham Palace, and various other sights.



We took a walk over to the Tower of London, famed for its past of torture and imprisonment. I'll let David talk more about that, but it was very cool to see the actual carvings of prisoners on the walls.



The independence we have here is wonderful, and I'm sure it'll only increase as we head over to Spain!


<Derek>


Hello! David here! We had a great trip to London today and I've got a bunch of pictures to post! So let's start with the journey to London, the train. Trains in England are fairly inexpensive and easy to catch. They can get you anywhere, but they are fairly cramped and crowded.


















Upon arriving in the city, we found the skyline dominated by our destination; the London Eye. We took tons of pictures from the eye. Blogspot seems to work on and off on this computer, and at the moment the captions feature is not working, so you'll have to grin and bear it, or as the English say, have a stiff upper lip.


Ok so here we have the London Eye. A circuit takes about half an hour but gives you a fantastic view of London. It's well worth the pricey £19 we payed. That's about $31. While riding we calculated that the eye, on a busy day, could rake in as much as £200,000! Next to that is the Houses of Parliment and Big Ben. We'll post more pictures from the eye on picasa.
















Next we visited the Globe Theatre. Unfortunately they were sold out for tickets for the day so we moved onto the Tower of London.



The Tower has been used for many things, but it is most notorious as a prison. It was generally used for high profile prisoners, often bishops, dukes, and rival monarchs. Now before you mock the poor quality of these photos, I should note that we weren't exactly supposed to be taking pictures at all, so most of these images were taken with the camera inside my sleeve.



Here we have the entrance to the Tower. Next to that is the Scavenger's Daughter, which was a notoriously cruel torture device that compressed your body. It was said to crush a person so badly, blood would leak from their eyes, ears, and nose.

So if you want any more pictures you'll have to rely on picasa. Blogspot is, quite frankly, being a major P in the A about getting these pictures up, so this is all I'm wiling to put up with for this post.

Anyways the Tower's been around for nearly a thousand years, with various parts being torn down and rebuilt every few hundred years. It's pricey but worth it if you can afford the £18 entrance fee, or about $30. If you ask for student price they may give you £2 off, but you might not get this without a student card. Also, the cost includes a £2 "voluntary donation" that most people are unaware they are making. To save a little extra coin tell them you're a poor college student and can barely afford the expensive fee without a hidden "voluntary donation" thank you very much... or something like that anyway.

OK I'm going to load photos to picasa.

Tomorrow we probably will have nothing to report, but Thursday we shall truly be on our own in Europe, as set out for Madrid.

Stay tuned! And if you're bored in the meantime, check out my girlfriend's blog about her gap year in Taiwan!

http://michelle-taiwan.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading!

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David out

Edit: The link to our Picasa Web Album is http://picasaweb.google.com/103364498072441154285/Eurotrip?feat=directlink