| London Summer 2005 |
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| (Click on the images for a larger version.) |
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| Every time we decide to "save" money on a flight by stopping for 24hrs in one of the world's most expensive cities (last time it was NYC), we regret it on the way back when we're tired and want to go straight home. |
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| This trip was no exception. |
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| We arrived at 6AM British time, midnight our time, so our adventure had some tired moments. |
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| But we saw so many colors, |
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| so much life, |
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| so much more of all the great things in this city than I thought was possible in such a short time |
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| that as I age and my memories begin fighting to see who stays and who goes in the finite space of my brain, |
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| I'm certain that some of the moments from this happy day will remain. |
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| I thought the British Museum was going to be the highlight of the London trip for me. It's all I really talked about before we left. I've wanted to see it for years. |
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| Where else can you see the Rosetta stone Napoleon found in Egypt. (that's right no where, there's only one!) |
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| Check it out: hieroglyphic (top), demotic (large middle section), greek (bottom). Just like what you read about in school. Amazing. |
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| And if that's not enough they have most of the Lewis chessmen (one of the few complete medieval chess sets [the pieces not here are in Scotland]). |
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| A building overflowing with history (e.g. what happened to the guy wearing this helmet? He won a great battle? Did he just get a headache? Or maybe he broke the helmet on a rock when no one was around to impress his friends with his battle worn helmet.) |
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| But the second time I fell asleep standing up, from my jet-lag, the stuffy air, and really museums are dry if you're not awake enough, Ilaria caught me as I fell and escorted me out of the museum to some fresh air so I wouldn't destroy any priceless objects. (most of the previous pictures were taken by her while I waited outside). |
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| We made it back to our scant but nice enough hostel room without my collapsing on the London pavement in exhaustion. We needed a nap, but it seemed very likely we wouldn't be able to wake back up; what a shame it would be to miss seeing more London on such a nice day. |
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| Thankfully, someone pulled the fire alarm and scared us (well, me at least) out of our skin. Ilaria-firewoman-Mogno started barking orders at me: don't put on your socks, don't tie your shoes, grab your wallet, hurry, let's go. While the whole time, I had NO IDEA where I was, and I was flipping all the switches on the walls to try and turn off this loud alarm clock that had just woken me up (after awhile [not a short while] I gave up and decided it was a fire alarm). |
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| After the rude awaking that in retrospect saved us from sleeping through our London stay, my cute gal and I were ready |
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| for anything and everything. |
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| We walked to the park |
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| and ate the British fare (I forgot how much grease is in chips; it was good but it still makes my stomach sick to think of it now) |
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| We walked through Trafalgar Square |
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| and took a bridge |
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| across the Thames |
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| to the South Bank. |
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| What a beautiful place for a walk late at night; you have St. Pauls, |
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| the Millenium Bridge, |
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| the recently rebuilt Globe Theater of Shakespearean fame, |
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| and the free Tate Modern. |
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| an Italian in the Tate |
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| & then it was time to put the tired girl to bed. |
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| The next day our flight wasn't until 2PM. |
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| So we snapped a few |
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| last pics. |
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| And caught the Stansted Express train to the airport. |