London Day II

In which everything goes wrong but everything is right in the end. Reached Westmister Abbey at 8:45 am only to find that instead of opening at 09:30 as usual, it would open at 12. Arrived at the Royal Guardhouse for the guard change only to find that the changing of the guards will not take place at 11 as scheduled, but at 4 pm. Bobby's battery died a slow death so we had to buy an adaptor (I had forgotten it in bucharest) and head back to the hotel to give Bobby some juice. I think we walked zillion kilometers that day.

That day was also the day when we engaged in conversation with the natives. The first encounter was at Westminster Cathedral around 8:10. We stumbled upon it and were staring at a map that was showing the location of the sermon (it had moved from Westminster Cathedral to another church), when this old man comes to us and tells us that there will be no sermon here today because there is a new bishop coming and so the sermon moved to this other church and if we want he can show us the way and we can go together.

Next, while we were staring at Westminster Abbey and trying to get to grips with a) the new plan and b) the cccc-c-old, a man carrying what looked like a old Nikon camera, came to us and asked us something along the lines of "Do you have a bomb?" "A what?" "A bomb!" he says. "A pound!" he says again. We said no. "Not even [enter something here]". "nope" we say. "How 'bout a penny". "Nope" we say. "Not even a penny?!" he says. "Nope" we say. "Hmm ... It is closed" (he says looking towards Westminster Abbey). "Yeah, we'll come back later ..." Then he leaves us and says "Next time have some pennies". WTF?!

Then, while feeding the squirrels (pictured) in St. James' Park, this elderly man walking past starts talking to us about what he read in the paper about the squirrels. How they are vermin and they destroy the flowers (at that point exactly the squirrel I was trying to coax with a piece of my green apple was removing what looked like a flower bulb from the flower bed) and that they are not native to England, only the red-tailed ones are, and how the administration plans to remove the squirrels but then if you remove them what else would we have in our parks?!

That day was the day in which I climbed on everything that I could find, including the lions that guard Nelson's monument in Trafalgar square and one of the lions from the front of Buckingham Palace.

Westminster Abbey:


Arch on the entrance to Dean's Yard, Westminster Abbey


Entrance to the choirsters cloisters, Westminster Abbey:


Inner garden of Westminster Abbey. Darwin has a monument in Westminster Abbey. How 'bout that?!


Trafalgar Sq:


Just climbed a 5c:


St. Martin in the Fields:



The horse liked me!


Royal Guardhouse:





Houses of Parliament and Marian:



Changing of the guards:






Feeding of the squirrels ceremony:


Fowl in St. James' Park:








Pillar @ Buckingham Palace:


Contemplating the difficult traverse:


Using the undercling:


Resting after the climb:


What to say to this?


Tired after the zillions of km:


Houses of Parliament from the other side:


Fairy tale sunset


St. Margaret's Church: