London Day 1

Ok, so the two negatives about the Jurys. First it didn’t have a room ready for me when I arrived. I’m not going to hold that against them. Their check in time is much later than I arrived. Second is that they are way the hell out of the way to downtown London. I’m a person who likes to walk and the distance I traversed not realizing how far out I was when I started was gigantic. Compound this with the fact that I was still wearing my slip-ons bought for the plane rides rather than my pair of walking shoes and it spelled severe damage to my feat. I’ll live but I am pretty certain I walked about 8 hours today and that all of this walking was on shoes with absolutely no padding whatsoever. I know now that I have to find a bus or Tube stop that will make my walking minimal as long as I’m staying at the Jurys. Theoretically this amounts to tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure the return to London has me here as well. For the record, the Jurys is in the Imperial Warf in Chelsea, SW6.

So when I finally reached town I started to take pictures and such. I have bunch of photos of Big Ben, taken from different angles at different points in the day. I did manage to find Sloane Tube stop and I took that to Westminster, which put me right on top of Parliament. Fortunately, I remembered that would happen. The Jurys is on the Thames, but it is miles away (kilometers away) from anything useful, honestly.

So, in starting from Westminster I did a short walking tour of London. I skipped some things I knew sort of but it wasn’t really intentional. It was more that I was just randomly wandering.

Some things I saw: Parliament, Big Ben and the Eye of London, pictures included. Trafalgar Square, pictures included. The Regent Street Spain Festival which was a big deal. All of Regent street was closed down. Unfortunately, on my first pass things were still setting up and on my second pass it was far too crowded, so I really didn’t take any pictures. I visited Westminster Abbey and took what pictures I was allowed to there and I visited Queen Mary’s Gardens where I took a ton of pictures.

When I doubled back to Buckingham Palace I found that they were having the Tour of London, which is a bicycle race that does a short lap of the Mall and a little beyond. When I got there, the participants were all using hand peddled bikes, presumably because they were handicapped. Pictures are included for Buckingham Palace and for the Tour of London (though I didn’t go nuts on these).

After I visited Buckingham Palace I made my way to Westminster Abbey. I entered there, but photography wasn’t allowed on the things worth taking pictures. I would say that anyone who visits London should visit the Abbey. There was some very good stuff there.

Most of my memories of day 1 will be about foot and knee pain. I am now at the point where I must sleep however. The images I are posted to kodakgallery here.