Travel Journal Day Seven & Eight: London

We returned to London from Scotland late Friday evening and although we had pretty much had our fill of churches and castles and royalty and all that, we had one more important stop to make: Westminster Abbey. This is one incredible building with an amazing history and so we headed straight to the Abbey on Saturday morning.

Right outside the Westminster Tube

Station is the famous clock: Big Ben

Westminster Abbey is only open

until 1:30pm on Saturdays and not

open at all (except for services) on

Sunday, so it was very crowded. There

is no photography allowed inside the

building--it is truly an amazing sight.

The inside of Westminster Abbey

houses the crypts of so many kings

and queens that I could not even begin

to remember them all.

Waiting in the Queue.

Our favorite spot in the Abbey is poet's corner

(with burial grounds and/or

monuments for authors such as T.S. Eliot,

William Shakespeare, Chaucer, Browning,

Keats, Dickens, as well as composers like George

Frideric Handel and actors such as Laurence Olivier.

It is an amazing spot. Of course, in the Nave, there

are also the tombs of Sir Isaac Newton

(The Da Vinci Code)

and Charles Darwin.

The rest of Saturday and Sunday was dedicated

to the London Street Markets.

First we visited the famous Portobello Road:

Joey shopped his little heart out at all the

antique shops and stalls

while Michael and I ate everything in

sight including freshly made crepes with

Nutella and banana filling

and piping hot English Meat Pies....

The best thing about London Street Markets:

The Food!

On Sunday we headed to Brick Lane, another

famous London Street Market with lots of vintage

clothing stores.

In case you can't really make out the picture

below, it is a shop window of a women's

vintage clothing store... what are you seeing?

Stuffed squirrels dancing in a circle wearing

vintage doll clothes. I know, weird and creepy,

but eye catching. The clothes in this store

were awesome despite the freaky window display.

There was also a full sized mannequin walking

a stuffed badger.... you can see the Badger's

behind in the foreground.

The Indian Food in London is the best.

After a cold, wet London Street Market

experience at Brick Lane, we had some

Chicken Tikka Masala, yum, yum!

Then we headed off to the town of

Camden Lock north of London for another

Street Market experience. Camden Lock

is the "goth" market of choice, so lots of

tattoos, piercings, leather everything,

interesting people watching. There were

also lots of crafts and Obama t-shirts.

Obama t-shirts?

Yup!

After Camden Lock, we headed to

Covent Garden, yet another Street Market,

this one right in the heart of London. We

finally made it back to the apartment to

pack and ready ourselves for the very long

travel day ahead of us on Monday.

Things I love about the UK:

Street Markets

Street Market Grub

The Tube (Underground System)

Indian Restaurants

Castles

London Theatre

The food markets at the fancy

department stores (like Japan only better

because I know what most of the food

is)

Cool Vacation Rental Apartments

People Watching

Things I don't particularly like about the UK:

the plane ride getting there, and home

too many kings and queens to remember

hangings and beheadings and a generally medieval violent history

where the H*ll are the restrooms, London is the most

restroom UNfriendly city

black (blood) pudding, yuck!

We had a great time, sad to see it end....

next year: Paris!