England: Day Four: London's Rain Falls Horizontally
Day four found us touring parts of London. Fortunately, there was a Starbucks along the way from the train station to the Tower of London. Unfortunately, we paid $12 for the privilege of two fancy coffee drinks.
Along the way to the Tower Bridge was a pretty interesting site - the Telectroscope - which allows Londoners to see their counterparts in New York. It looked distinctly awesome, as if something had erupted out through the ground.
The tour through the Tower was, well, wet. We made a game of counting how many umbrellas London killed. We stopped after passing an entire dumpster filled with broken umbrellas. Obviously, London came out on top of the umbrella scourge. I didn't realize that many of the Crown Jewels were stored in the Tower - I don't think I went through there the last time I had been in London. Overall it was a fantastic, though wet, experience.
The rain began to lighten up after our British take on Japanese food. By the time we got to Buckingham Palace, it only looked mournful, not terrible. The Queen was in, as evidenced by her flag and the men with guns. This was actually the only place we saw armed police. It's really true that the culture of guns there just doesn't exist. Instead, they stab each other. An actor in the next Harry Potter movie was stabbed to death while we were in England.
In the evening, we tried to find fish and chips for Rachel. Unfortunately, the restaurant we wanted to stop at closed 20 minutes before we arrived. The one we actually ended up in had terrible food and service. C-c-c-combo!! We got back to Simon's parent's place relatively early and spent some time planning out the rest of the trip that needed planning. Lots of good relaxation and reading happened on this trip. And we weren't even halfway through yet!!