Of Birds and Creepy Statues

The next day we woke up revived and ready to go with an ambitious list of places to go. We started out easy and decided to roam Kensington Gardens which was literally across the street from us. It was really really really big. Not central park status, but big enough that we would've easily gotten very lost if we wandered for too long. Not that we didn't anyway but still. There were also a LOT of birds:

Ally actually scared most of them away before I could get a good picture, but there were tons. Like, borderline Hitchcock's The Birds status. There was also this big house thing but, like true college students, it cost money so we just admired it from the outside instead of paying:

We then tried to find our way back to the Tube stop and happily found ourselves wandering embassy row. We were all letting our nerdy-ness shine through as we tried to ID the flags. We also realized that there was a guard at the end of the street who wouldn't let people in, which is when we figured out we had entered at the wrong end and probably weren't allowed there. There also was a gigantic sign saying not pictures so it's a good thing we didn't take any to begin with.

We finally made our way to St Paul's Cathedral. Any Disneyphiles who know all the words to Mary Poppins songs (cough*me*cough), would also know that St. Paul's is where the old woman sits and feeds the birds:

Much to my let down, there was no old woman feeding birds. There were old women, and birds, but no interactions between the two. *sigh*

It's a cool building and so huge I couldn't get the whole thing in one picture:

 until I stood in the middle of the street to take a picture:

and even then it took until walking around to the back edge to get a truly good view:

for reference, here's Ally and Maggie standing at the side entrance:

That's not even the entrance that's supposed to wow you but it does anyway. Another thing that kinda wowed me in a not so good way were the extremely creepy cherub faces peeking out everywhere in the stone work:

I mean, yes it's a church so fat baby angels are expect, almost required! But next time London, try not to make them seem so...possessed. We want babies looking like this:

not this:

Aaaaaaaanyway....Just as the subway seems to be a gathering point for interesting people in NYC, so is the Tube. One happier run in made my not-so-inner nerd get extremely excited:

I know it's a bad shot,I was taking it creeper style to try and not be quite so obvious of my glee, but that is indeed a guy dressed as a Dalek collecting money for something. A for effort, but I probably would've been more convinced into giving you change if you were dressed as the Doctor.

We seemed to have the rain follow us from Ireland as it started just as we went to go look at the London Bridge:

now you see the ship!

now you don't! See? I really should've gotten that letter from Hogwarts.

It's actually referred to as the Tower Bridge for obvious reasons and the London Bridge is something entirely else. So when we showed up to a bridge that had a "London Bridge" sign on it, we were kind confused for a while before we finally spotted the bridge we wanted to see. Turns out, the Tower of London is right next to the bridge. We were planning on actually paying for that and going so we decided to go and walk across the bridge, since we had a lot of time to kill. As expected, you have to pay to go up into the towers on the bridge since I think there's a museum or something in them. We were quite content to just stroll across it free of charge.

We even got a lovely group picture in which I smiled nicely:

We (I) had learned from our failed group photo at the Cliffs of Moher (in which you can't really see the cliffs and there are strangers in the picture):

 to never again ask someone who looked as if they had never held a camera in their life.

Once we headed back towards the Tower of London:

 we decided to eat lunch before buying tickets for the Tower of London. Before we had even gotten on our flight, we had all agreed that to save money and inches on our waistline, we would only eat out on very few occasion because as cheap as cafes might look, buying meal after meal at restaurants and such really puts a ding in your wallet. In the true style of cheap travelling, we had gone to a supermarket the day before and had made sandwiches to bring along. We happened to be in luck because there was a fish and chips store nearby that had endless kinds of sauces that we sneakily added to our sandwiches. Since the rain stopped, we decided to eat at one of the many benches that were around all whilst trying to avoid the segulls. It was a good idea because they were like this:

They were vicious in their hunt for food. A kid at the bench next to us accidentally dropped his fries and he and his friend actually abandoned their stuff and ran away until the fries were all gone:

In the interest of our personal safety, we decided to move to a cafe indoors to finish our lunch. Afterwards, we finally headed into the tower. It's actually more of a complex rather than a single tower, but it's still a royal building and so it's still guarded. The Queen's Guard are actually the ones that give tours of the place and even if they don't move a muscle outside Buckingham Palace, they're pretty hilarious tour guides. Ours was extremely loud in a drill sergeant-ish way but highly amusing to listen to:

He informed us the "costume" he's wearing is actually one of their uniforms and he's required to wear it not as a tour guide, but as a guard. He was very touchy on the fact that most people don't believe he's a guard so if you ever visit here, don't call it a costume.

The place is pretty big (this is only one corner):

 and has loads of different history museum stuff ranging from armor, the crown jewels, and info about people who've lived/been imprisoned/died/executed there. There were a lot. The main building:

is actually where the royal family lived for a time, but now houses the armor and weapons display as well as this beauty:

which I have decided is going to be my next pet. It can play in the yard with my micro pigs, Dinner and Bacón.

There really were guards all around and we even got to see what I think was a changing of the guards:

Not a single one had the trademark red coat, but the hats more than make up for it. All I could think whenever I saw one was that they looked like Winkies from the Wizard of Oz:

The whole place is really cool with lots of history and the crown jewels are redonkulous but the whole thing is well worth the visit. It's a bit pricey as far as attractions go, but we could've easily spent twice the amount of time there so it's not a dud. Plus, it was basically the only thing we paid for all day. They even have shwanky bathrooms and the awards to prove it:

They literally have awards for everything now. Seriously? "Loo of the Year"? It's like the Golden Toilet Brush from Hoover, only in the real world. 

Since that took up most of our afternoon, we decided to head back to the hostel for some much deserved nap time. We didn't have anything planned for the night, so Maggie and I (Ally wasn't feeling well) decided to go and see Parliament all lit up. And man did it make for some good pictures:

We also made a pit stop at the Marble Arch which was actually pretty close to our hostel since it was at the opposite end of Kensington Gardens. Unfortunately, it did not have lights like the Eye or Parliament, so my pictures turned out kinda dark:

Probably because a lot of embassies are in the area, they had flags from different nations down either side of the walk way, which would've made for a cool picture if you could see. But ya couldn't. They did have some creepy horse statues close by that we checked out, but lord if I knew what they were there for. They were illuminated so apparently London likes to flaunt it's creepy statue collection. Whatever floats yer boat London.