A month and half ago (has it really been that long?) I was able to spend a couple of days in London with my brother Andy, who lives in Geneva. (Here we are near the London Tower Bridge.) Andy really enjoys London and I’d never been visited the city before, so when my solo October trip to the US ended up being routed through London, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
We had a fantastic time. Through some friends of Andy, we were able to stay only a short double-decker bus ride from downtown London. (Thanks Pieter, Naomi and kids!) As an added bonus, the weather was actually quite nice. It sprinkled only once and the air was crisp and cool. Oh how I enjoyed having to wear long sleeves and a jacket for a change!
We spent most of our time hanging out downtown, mainly on the south bank of the Thames. The Parliment building – and Big Ben – were impressive. We wanted to check out Westminster Abbey as well, but the admission fee was steep. (Actually, I should say too steep. London is one of the most expensive cities in the world so the price of everything pretty much classifies as ‘steep’.)
Anyways, we spent an afternoon taking in some very interesting art at the Tate Modern Museum. We also got a guided tour of London Tower and London Tower Bridge, courtesy of Andy’s Welsh friend, Rob, who meet us for lunch. As Rob was going through the centuries of British history I found myself being very thankful for the relatively short history of the US – much less to be tested over in school! Rob, a civil engineer, did some work on the London Underground system, so he was also able to share some interesting, little-known facts about its construction as we ‘tubed’ around downtown.
One of the coolest things we did was ride the London Eye, the very large ferris wheel which was recently added to the London skyline and is operated by British Airways (they called the ride a ”flight”, which I found amusing). It is an impressive structure (when they where putting it up, the wheel literally laid across the Thames like a bridge!) and it has really cool design.
During the ride, you get a bird’s eye view of the city. That was great for us since we didn’t want to spend the time trying to see everything up close. Thanks to the Eye, I can truthfully say that I’ve seen Buckingham Palace and Wembley Stadium…just not in great detail!
I’ve got more pics and stories to share in part 2 of this post . . . coming soon! (I promise!)
Into the Wild 
I like that you both have the same hairdo right now. Did you plan that? 🙂
Of course we planned that, Jen! We tried to coordinate our outfits as well.
Actually, my hair is really short because it is so stinking hot here in Togo. Andy’s hair is like mine because, well, he wants to be like me. (I don’t know this for sure, but it is a pretty good guess.)
It’s remarkable designed for me to have a site, which is beneficial for my knowledge.
thanks admin