Sightseeing in London

            I think I saw nearly everything there is to see in London today.  We took the tube into downtown and walked all over.  Just some of the things I saw include: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, the London Eye, the London Bridge, the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, Globe Theater, and about a thousand other cathedrals and monuments.  We also walked briefly through the Victoria and Albert museum and the Natural History museum.  I’ll have to match up my pictures with the maps to remember everything.  I had a great time exploring the incredibly beautiful city.  There are lots of construction projects going on in preparation for the Olympics and I’m looking forward to see what they turn out to be. 

Some weird things from today:

-          I was taking a picture of this artwork on the sidewalk of different country’s flags.  I took a picture of Zambia’s flag, USA’s flag, and was looking for Estonia’s flag when a middle Eastern man came up to me and said, “No, stop taking pictures. You have enough.  No more pictures for Americans.”  I was really confused because I was in no way doing anything disrespectful.  He actually started walking on the art so he would ruin my picture.  And how did he know I was American?  I was taking pictures of several different flags and I don’t think I was speaking this entire time. 

-          There were people dressed in different movie characters along the Thames River by the London Eye.  There was Shrek, Captain Jack Sparrow, the tin man, and a bunch of others.  It was strange and kind of creeped me out.

-          I thought the Tower Bridge was London Bridge.  London Bridge is actually very boring and looks just like a regular bridge. 

I was constantly surprised by how many different accents I heard.  I rarely heard an actual British accent – most of the time it was some other European or Asian accent.  I had no idea how diverse London was.  Anyway, it was a good day full of sightseeing.  I’m very tired from all our walking and am looking forward to my (surprisingly comfortable) bed on the floor.