major landmarks of england

What a whirlwind! We saw more things than I thought we could possibly see in a weekend!! I've returned to Maastricht feeling a little more competent with buses and trains, and perhaps photography. :) I took over 300 pictures, so I wanted to share a little bit of everything on here. You can see more at my picasa album. For starters, here are some of the most well-known spots that we visited. The TWO photos I am most excited about were taken by others- so look for a shot of Platform 9 3/4 and a recreation of the famous Abbey Road Beatles photo coming soon!


Big Ben: An amazing masterpiece. It's even more magnificent in person, and is surrounded by fantastic architecture. It was the perfect day to go see it- though it was cold. No rain the whole trip! In the background, you can see the London Eye, which we didn't have time to see.

Westminister Abbey- Probably the most beautiful place I have ever been. It was spectacular. Right next to Big Ben/Parliament, it was glorious.



Buckingham Palace- We went to attempt to see the changing of the guards, but it was soo busy that we didn't get to see anything. That's one thing about London...it was insanely busy. Bustling, hurried, rushed...but we kind of liked it. The pace is even crazier than New York. And the Tube was insane. Our feet were killing us! But you have to walk fast to get out of the cold, and to catch trains, and to not get run over! It was exciting though! The palace was a little less ornate than I expected, but its gates were quite grand.



Trafalgar Square- We went at a great time, when the sun was setting, to get some awesome pictures. It was full of tourists- one of the things that I actually kind of liked about London. Hearing other languages made me feel better about not knowing Dutch in Maastricht. And, it was nice to know that everyone else was navigating and trying to figure things out along with us.



Stonehenge- This was part of our day trip to a few places outside London. The hilarious thing was that it was SO COLD and I mean COLD there that we all scurried out of the bus, ran around the stones like little hamsters and took a billion pictures in like 2 minutes...then we immediately ran back to the bus! I'm glad I saw it; though Kathy and I asked the tour guide about the theory that aliens built it and she looked at us like we were crazy! But then again, she did also credit some random dude other than J.R.R. Tolkien for Lord of the Rings. She was super nice and funny though! And not gonna lie, I am a little proud of this photo. :)



Abbey Road- I put up a picture of Kathy, because she was EXTREMELY excited to go here. We spent, literally, an hour planning and arranging and posing for our picture. The thing is, Abbey Road is a residential road. Which means cars go across the crosswalk about every 15 seconds. Thus, we had to wait at the walk to run and pose. As we waited, car drivers kept stopping for us (because I think they have to) and we had to wave them on! One guy thought we didn't know how to cross the street, so he said, "No, no, you can cross and they have to stop for you, see?" Before we could respond, he ran into the middle of the road and froze as an example! Kathy has the photo...can't wait to show you!



Thames River- Again, freezing cold. But we walked across the Millennium Bridge, which we could and should have used to get to the rebuilt Globe Theatre. Instead, we took a 45 minute "detour." We didn't get to tour the tower, but we did see it from a distance!



St. Paul's Cathedral- This was a beautiful, gigantic cathedral. We wanted to go to the service, but it was either really early in the morning or too close to the time we had to leave.



British Museum- Absolutely crazy. We got here and had about 20 minutes to run through before it closed, and we had to go to a show. The inside glass ceiling was really cool. They had the Rosetta stone, mummies, a thousand sculptures and just a ton of things. We basically ran through it! And, interestingly, they allowed photography in every exhibit...never seen that in a museum before. Plus, museums in London are free, which is fantastic.


Plenty more to come!