Tag Archives: London Eye

London Eye and Salsa Dancing

It has been a busy weekend. Friday we went and knocked a few more of the touristy things off of our lists. We did the London Eye and the accompanying river cruise. The London Eye is 450 ft tall. So here’s looking out over London.

The next few are all pictures from the London Eye. There is Big Ben, County Hall (which houses little exhibits and an arcade and things) and part of one of the ferris wheel pods, a nice aerial view of London if you see the blueish dome sort of thing in the right hand side of the picture, that is the top of the British Museum’s grand court!
The river cruise was relaxing. It’s nice to get a slow different view of the Thames. Here is the London Bridge and all of us on the cruise. After all of that we just wandered the Thames area. Watched some street theatre which is always intriguing. This guy looked exactly like a real statue, he even had a pigeon on his shoulder at one point. These people literally paint their whole bodies and just stand in the street all day long. There were about 6 people or so doing it, this man, a silver wizard, a golden slinky man, a golden cowboy, a fish on a bicycle, and blue guitar man and I think that was it.This next guy was nuts. He pretended to be Indian and I don’t really know why. He was actually Australian and he did all sorts of crazy juggling. For his final act he climbed a maybe 10 foot pool and laid on a bed of nails while juggling, ouch but he was entertaining.

This picture doesn’t really have a purpose, we don’t really know what the sculpture is but Casey and I thought it would be a good idea to stick our heads through it and have our picture taken. However, when we started to get our heads stuck we decided it wasn’t our best idea so just posed like this instead.

Today Mai, Leslie and I went to the Carnival De Cuba, which is the world’s largest Cuban festival outside of Cuba. It was a lot of fun though my knees hurt from salsaing too much. Here we are sporting our fancy custom cut Cuba t-shirts.
Why do people really go to Carnivals? Not because I’m Cuban but because jerk chicken is tasty and I enjoyed a lot of it…and three strawberry smoothies.

Here is part of the festival set-up. There was live music all day long, which made for a lot of dancing. I’ve come to the conclusion the dancing makes my right knee hurt, I don’t think that this will stop me however. Below for example is Mai trying to take a cute picture when I’m too busy rocking out. The carnival was fun and made for a lazy day with great atmosphere.

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I love markets

Stayed up late Thursday night so decided it just may not be a bad idea to sleep in a bit. I feel like I’m wasting valuable time but I guess if I don’t sleep I won’t fully enjoy time either. We got started a little later in the afternoon but Leslie and I didn’t have anything planned so we just went wandering. We ended up down by the London Eye (which I will ride eventually before I leave hopefully) We just sort of wandered in and out of places on the the waterfront looking for things to do. This is a Dali design sculpture on the Thames. I love it, it is from one my favorite paintings of his.

Next we came upon a Fright Club Horror Show, so for lack of something better to do we went. I was locked in the stockades and beating with a bloody amputated leg. It was an interesting show. It is apparently not illegal for people in haunted houses to touch you here cause I about lost my leg twice and had a small girl on my back at one point. It was fun, I’m almost sure in the states they aren’t allowed to touch you at all.
Next we found a huge arcade so just stopped by and played a few games. The bumper cars were absolutely ridiculous. It would have been a lawsuit in the states for sure. They went really really fast and when you got hit it wasn’t just a little bump it was getting thrown all the way to the other side of the arena. It was the best bumper cars I’ve ever been on!Leslie and I’s camels raced …her camel was faster than mine. We used the tickets we won at the arcade to buy candy. I feel it was a good investment for the return of fun and sugar.

Then we just came back to the flats and chilled as we were both really tired from our afternoon of fun. I’m entirely sick of eating spaghetti and pbj sandwiches so I decided to stop and get groceries and make something tasty. Mom should be proud! I like to make it fancy and call it Sage and Cheddar Fried Aubergine on a bed of creamy chicken pilaf with a roasted baguette. It was tasty enough to sound that fancy but really it was fried eggplant with brown rice with cream of chicken soup poured over it. Minus the butter and sodium it was kind of healthy right?
This morning I forgot my camera. I never forget my camera so this naturally upset me. I take pictures of everything but Casey wouldn’t let me go back for it. We went to the Camden Market and it was amazing. It was like it’s own little village and there was so much neat stuff! My first purchase was some peaches…four and I’ve eaten them all all ready. Casey and I wandered there for quite a few hours. I didn’t buy too much, there were a lot of clothes and crafts stuff I don’t actually NEED or have room to pack. I did however meet a leather worker who I schmoozed with for a while and he made me two custom made leather bracelets for 6 quid only! I was so excited so they fit my wrist perfectly and were crazy cheap. He offered to make me a zebra skin belt too but that was kind of weird and Casey was waiting to leave.

We ate some really bizarre but amazing candy at a stand, and also some really bad lemonade. Lemonade is very hit or miss in this country…you never know their definition of it or what they are going to give you. I try to stick to water. The market was amazing, I might try to hit it up again before we leave…I’m only here 36 more days. That’s not very many. Here is a pic or two I made just for fun, this is what I do really late at night when I’m procrastinating on sleeping.

Tomorrow I have a lot of work to do for work. Too much work but I’m trying to keep at it. I guess the museum is basically substituting me for the professional consultants they usually have come in. David thinks I can do better then I’m sure I can. It’s just going to be intense. Tomorrow at Trafalgar Square they are having a free event called West End Live, note the word free, I love that. Basically all of the shows that are going on around here, Dirty Dancing, Phantom of the Opera, Spamalot, Chicago, etc. are going to have actors there performing skits and numbers from their shows. So that should be a lot of fun!


London!

Stick with me mates, it has been a few days and I have done a lot. This may be a long one. The flight from D.C. was fairly pleasant. I sat next to a grad student who was on her way to do some fellowship in a country that starts with an A that I can pronounce and she was very nice. We received free socks, eye masks, toothbrush and paste, and we started out with a snack. I had pretzels and a class of Chardonnay, my first legal glass of wine. I felt very cosmopolitan. For dinner we had a feast, salad, a wheat roll, a small block of cheese, chicken breast with a mushroom gravy, rice, sauteed spinach with a pepper medley, a slice of double chocolate swirl cheesecake, and a glass of Merlot. It was quite a meal. I slept most of the way in order to try and prevent jet lag. Night flying has to be one of the most amazing things in the world. Looking out the window was beautiful. Between the stars in the sky and the lights on the ground it was just a big blanket of sparkle. Here we are after our six and a half hour or so flight.Our first views of London, nice crowded little streets.
Here is what the outside of our accommodations at Liberty Fields look like, not too shabby right?
The view from my window, charming isn’t it. Though without screens on the windows I’m a bit scared I’ll have pigeons as pets before long.Here is my flat, a nice little closet in the wall that I share with one other girl.

 

We took a three hour bus tour today. The London Eye and Big Ben.The London Bridge

 


The Tower of London, I can’t wait to actually go here.
Here is a picture Dad might enjoy a little bit more, MI6 their spy headquarters. Recognize it from any of the James Bond flicks?

 


Last but not least, Casey, Ben and I wandered London this evening whilst looking for our internships places. Ben walks out of the tube right up to Big Ben what an unfortunate site to have to see every morning, it is truly amazing. Here you can see the London Eye in the background as well. Even though Casey is afraid of heights I think we’ve talked him into going up in it with us. We also went and saw the British Museum, HUGE! I can’t wait. I find out more about my internship tomorrow. I know I originally wanted to travel the whole island and maybe go to Amsterdam…but there is more than enough to keep me busy here for two months…and might save me some money! We’ll see.