London, England

Earlier in the month I traveled down to London for the week with Carolina. Once in London we met up with her parents, and I was also able to meet up with a friend of mine from Texas who I used to play soccer with. My first day out I met my friend Lauren Siepiela, and the two of us ate lunch at a tex-mex restaurant called Texas Embassy. It was really good and of course something we both enjoyed! Afterwards she showed me around the city. Below is a picture of Trafalgar Square with the National Gallery.

View of Big Ben and Parliment as while we crossed one of the many bridges.

The London Eye

In front of Big Ben

Downing St. where Gordon Brown lives. His place is over on the right behind the gate.

One of the guards behind Gordon Brown's place

Buckingham Palace

Picadilly Circus. This is London's Time Square.

China town London. All these beautiful paper laterns were put up for the Chinese New Years.

On our second day we started the day off at the Tower of London.

Tower London

Walking down to the crypt of a church located right outside Tower London.

View of Tower Bridge from inside Tower of London.

Inside Tower London, guards marched around as they traditionally would. These guards are located all over London and are the same ones you can see outside of Buckingham Palace.

It was a sunny day as you can tell, but here's another picture infront of Tower Bridge (not to be mistaken with London Bridge, which Carolina and I thought this bridge was).

After Tower of London we went up into Tower Bridge to see the city from another view.

View from the bridge, this is the Thames River.

London

Once we saw the view from the top of the bridge we went down to the boiler room and were able to take some funny pictures with these random cut-outs!

Carolina's the girl and I'm the boy!haha

After Tower Bridge we had a quick bite to eat, travelled over to the Globe Theater where William Shakespeare put on his many plays. The real Globe Theater does not exist anymore, but this was rebuilt to show a representation of what it would have been like. Plays still go on here during the spring and summer time.

Here is the main stage.

A close up view of the more expensive seats in the house.

Overhead view from the top seats in the house. As you can see it's an open top, so if it rains the people inside do get wet. They tried to use all the same materials and set it up just as it would have looked in Shakespeare's time.

In Shakespeare's time the pennystinkers were located in the middle area of the theater which was exposed to the weather. They were called this because these standing room seats cost a penny, and were sold to the poor who ususally stunk.

One night Carolina and I met Lauren and her boyfriend Tom for dinner at a Moroccan restaurant. Neither of us had had this type of food before, but we had a good time!

Lauren with her boyfriend Tom.

After dinner we went across the street to a little pub for a drink.

The three of us.

Westminster abbey.

The front of the abbey.

London Parliment.

Side view of Parliment.

Beginning of the changing of the guards.

We saw these two carriages leave Buckingham Palace on the way to Parliment possibly? Not sure if anyone was in there, or if it was for show? Who knows but it was fun to see.

The crowds outside of Buckingham Palace waiting for changing of the guards.

More people waiting to see the guards change.

As it begins. The whole event takes over an hour. Very neat to see, but that day was so cold despite the fact that it was sunny outside.

The guards came in waves. First they came down one street and then they came down another street. Totally not what I was expecting for changing of the guards.

Carolina and I freezing our butts off outside Buckingham Palace.

Then the guards came riding in on horses.

St. Paul's Cathedral, where Princess Diana got married, and also Florence Nightingale is buried down in the crypt. Beautiful inside, but we were not allowed to take pictures inside. Carolina and I actually walked up to the top of the Cathedral, which took us about 30minutes!

View from the top of the Cathedral. Below is Millineum Bridge and to the left is the Globe Theater (the white building with the brown covering).

The London Eye and another view of the city.

Kensington Palace. No longer used as a Palace for the royalty, but some of the extended family will still visit here. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside here either.

Statue outside of Kensington Palace.

The gardens outside of the palace.