The England Vacation Day 4: London

Day 4 was, by far, the best day of the trip weather-wise. After putting up with rainy weather in the 40s and 50s, we went outside to find that it was bright, sunny and in the upper 60s-low 70s. That kind of day just feels that much better after you've suffered through all the others. We knew this would be the day to go on The Eye, since you get weather like this maybe three days out of every four years or so in London. Well, it's close to that. People told me. Honest.



Anyway, here we are on the Millennium Bridge that crosses the Thames. Obviously, The Eye is in the background. The Eye was built to celebrate the whole year 2000 thing. It was scheduled to be taken down, but once they realized what a hassle that would be, they changed their minds. Their decision was helped by the fact that people like me are willing to pay $25 apiece to ride the thing for half an hour. Believe me, there were plenty of people willing to pay to go up on a day like that.

We were probably the only two people in London who owned sunglasses. Just making an observation. Keep the size of those pods in the background in mind...



Cause here we are at the summit. Notice how many people are in that big old pod. That's a lot of money. Then think of how many pods go around on that giant ferris wheel all day long. To think they considered tearing the damn thing down. No wonder the giant English empire was whittled down to one measly island...



Big Ben, again. I like the depth of field that this shot has going on. That's about all I can say. I took a LOT more shots than this, but I'll spare you (and my bandwidth) by not posting them. I did get my $25 worth in digital pictures, though.

After this we went around to some of the market districts, which was cool, if uneventful. I stopped in a place called Gadget Shop, but it was all crap. I'm a gadget guy, and I was glad they were going out of business their stuff sucked so bad. We moved on.



This is the oldest restaurant in London, established in 1798. We considered eating there, until we realized that neither of us had won the lottery, so we instead opted for dinner at the pub right near my sister's flat. She'd never been there, for some odd reason. The food was great and the Guinness was on tap, so it was a good evening. They even had free wireless internet in there if you were so inclined to use a computer in a pub. I did wish I had a PSP to test out, but then thought better of it, considering I was in a pub. Great place. Hillary even discovered a new drink, a strawberry beer from Belgium called Früli. The only possible thing that could bug me is that bartender didn't give me the perfect pour on the Guinness. That's a truly minor complaint, and proof that you can't have everything, I guess.

I didn't even have to use my A.K. I gotta say it was a good day.

Coming Tomorrow:
The HMV/Virgin Megastore Megahaul!