London, Part 1 The Palace and the Park

Remember back before digital cameras? You were so limited in your picture taking because you only had so much film. And when you got back from your trip you had to mail your film to the developer and wait a few weeks before you got the pictures from your trip.

Now you can take endless pictures, see them immediately and edit them at the end of each day of your trip. But if you are going to have your mom blog them, you still have to wait a few weeks for her to upload them from the camera and sort through the hundreds of photos you took.

I am now starting that process. Here are the first set of photos from Marina's trip to England. She went to London with her Aunt Linda at the beginning of August and stayed a week. Thankfully. I have enough to sort through, I may be posting them into September!

One of their first stops was Buckingham Palace. Below are photos of the back, where they exited from their tour...





I love this view of the palace through the gardens in the back of the palace...

After their tour, they went around to the front of the palace and saw some guards in the courtyard beyond the gate. Below is a picture of the guards and a close up of the crest on the palace gates. (I remember this from my own trip, 18 years ago)...

Here is the Victory Statue at the front of the palace. It was made for Queen Victoria...

Surrounding the Victory statue were several statues at ground level. I think she liked the ones with the lions. She claims most of them had lions...

A statue of Captain Cook, across the street from St. James Park, which is next to Buckingham Palace...

I love this one. It's a model of Admiral Nelson's ship in a bottle. The sails were made of glass. No idea how they got it in a bottle. Behind it is the National Gallery.

This is the Crypt near Trafalgar Square. "Isn't it fun? Don't you just love this big glass building with the word 'Crypt' on it, not even in Gothic style?" says Marina, "It's a lovely place for tea!" Inside is a circular staircase and elevator (I mean, lift) much like the Apple store in NYC. It leads down to a cafe and a gallery that features memorial carvings from as far back as the 17th century. Apparently, they have good hot chocolate.



Back in St James Park, they got up close and personal with the pelicans. The park is known for its wide variety of waterfowl. As you can see, the pelicans are very relaxed around the crowds!

Here is view from the Blue Bridge in St. James Park. The circle on the right is the Millenium Eye, a gigantic ferris wheel that goes around very slowly. One trip around take a half hour. People have parties on it. It was supposed to be taken down after the celebrations, but because it was profitable and would take a lot of work to remove, it was left up.



And that was the first half of their second day. Marina insists the first day wasn't worth mentioning as it was full of pouring rain and misdirection as they got their bearings on the London streets! I'm sorry about the lack of details. I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment and trying to get these up while making sure I have time to get Marina to work. She's been in high demand at the library since she got back!