Julianna and London: Part 2

After lunch, Julianna had some time to kill. She had a birthday dinner she had to get to a little later, but offered to spend the time in between showing me her city.

You know, I hadn't seen much of the topside of London until then, so I really didn't have a sense of scale. London really isn't that big. I mean, by European standards, it's a huge city, and there's certainly a lot to see and do, but you can walk around a good part of the main part of the city in just a few hours.

Borough Market rolled right into an area of London Julianna referred to as South Shore. (I think) This apparently was her favorite part of the city. Being a nice sunny Saturday, there were many people out taking advantage.


What a scene. Mom, dad, when you come to London next year, this is a place to see. There were various street performers; musicians, dancers, and the eclectic. There was a performing Elvis status... that kind of creep'd me out, actually, and all other sorts of attractions...

Now, I'm not really a big city person. London is by every definition, a big city. So part of my day was spent trying to discern what things were "typical big city" fare, and what was distinctly London. On some points I would even question Julianna on this.

One thing that is apparently quite popular in London, and according to Julianna, is quite "London", was the book fare.

Wow, call me cynical, but I couldn't imagine this many Americans gathering for something like this. Wait, is that a little kid? A kid, wanting to read a book? What kind of society is this?!

Sorry, got a little spiteful there for a second. :)

Anyway, apparently they set this up (every weekend, I think?) right underneath one of the many bridges over the Thames, to obviously protect the works from the rain that's rather common to this part of the world. (I say that tongue in cheek. I'll fill you in why in another post)

I'd say there's one more interesting thing of mention on South Shore. This picture should say it all.

Amazing. There was quite a lot of traffic through here, so I waited so I could get a good shot of these two. I think I may have mentioned this a time or two, but Europeans love Obama. I've had so many people here ask me personally to go back and vote for him as a favor to them.

As a quick side note, Europeans seem to love talking about politics. It's generally considered taboo in polite conversation back home, but here, people want to know. They have no qualms at all asking "Who are you voting for?" It's become apparent to me our president probably has more influence in their lives than even their own president at times. Europeans know so much about us. And what they don't know, they eagerly ask and await the answer. In spite of everything our media would want us to believe, these people really do seem to love America.

So our walk down South Shore ended at the famous London Eye. My pictures don't do it justice, I mean, I was standing right under it. But it's really neat. It's this enormous Ferris wheel. Each pod holds like 25 people. You get in, and it slowly turns, giving you about 30 minutes to see London. Julianna gave some suggestions, however. I didn't go in it, but if you decide to, order your ticket online. The queue for this thing was insane. Apparently, when you order online, you get a designated time slot, and you can walk right in. No queue. It's also cheaper, from what Julianna was telling me.

Turning right after the eye, we walked across the bridge to Big Ben. The lighting ruined my photos, but it was nonetheless an impressive sight. You can hear it chime throughout the day from quite a ways away. Big Ben is in the entrance of the "historic down town" district, as I'd like to call it. This is where you get to see all of the famous buildings you have no doubt heard about in the past. I took pictures.

Julianna was an awesome tour guide. She really loves London, and it was readily apparent in her enthusiasm retelling the stories of some of the various buildings.

Julianna was definitely very cool, and it was great to chat with someone who was at least a proxy of back home. If you're reading this, thanks again for taking the time out of your weekend to hang out with a complete stranger and show him around London. :) I really had a great time.