Day 8: Dipping into Bath

I am not ashamed of the puns.

Today was my only full day in Bath. I had plans to take a walking tour (an educational one this time), see the Roman Baths, get a pasty, do the Skyline Walk, visit the Cathedral, see the Assembly Rooms (big Georgian ballrooms that I wanted to visit just to pretend I was waltzing in them), try the famous afternoon tea for which the British are so renowned, and tour Bath Abbey.

I actually got most of that done, believe it or not. Not the hike or the assembly rooms (they were occupied, dammit!), but pretty much everything else.

I started with the free historical tour. The tour guides are great people who love Bath and want to share its stories with the world; they absolutely do no accept tips or money of any kind (the funny thing is, I normally jump at any chance to get something for free and I hate being expected to tip restaurant staff back home, the restaurant should have the ability to pay its employees properly, but as soon as they so vehemently announced that money would not be accepted my mind started coming up with reasons I could have for giving some to them: I don't know what's wrong with my head but it's apparently something awful). I learned so much about the architectural history of Bath (mostly in the 1700s when it became a big holiday place, the city everyone visited to see and be seen). It was absolutely fascinating.

One of the builders of Bath into a destination city was John Wood the Elder, an architect (the Elder because his son was also an architect and did some important stuff for Bath a bit later) who transformed the city. The Circus, this big circular set of apartments with three inroads and a big cobbled area in the middle (now it's grassy with some nice trees) was his design, full of Hellenic architecture.

One of the sides of the Circus

The picture isn't as detailed as I had hoped, but the Circus actually has a really nice representation of each of the three classical pillar types: the top level is Corinthian, then Ionic and at the bottom Doric. Up at the roof level you might be able to pick out some roundish knobby things: those are acorns, either representing oak trees which were sacred to Druids of the area or symbols of the story of Bladud, an ancient prince who had leprosy (or some similar skin disease). The story goes that he was kicked out by his family and people and the only job he could find was herding pigs who also had leprosy (or some similar skin disease). He and his pigs wandered around for a while until they came across this warm boggy area and the pigs decided to root for acorns. They snorted around happily and came out miraculously cured. Bladud swam or wallowed around a bit and he was cured too! And thus the magical springs of Bath were discovered.

Then we moved on to the Royal Crescent, designed by John Wood the Younger. It was constructed in a time when people were a bit less interested in looking at other people and wanted to see nature instead. It was built in the shape of a semi-ellipse, looking out over fields to the city of Bath down below.

The Royal Crescent

At the center of the Crescent is the Royal Crescent Hotel, unmarked but for a few small details. It's that classy.

The only defining features are the little tree-bushes and the extra semicircle of window to mark the center of the Crescent

After two hours of great history lessons* I returned to the city center and decided that it was lunchtime. I got a pasty from a place that apparently won the World Pasty Awards for Best Pasty. It was good, but the sweet potato was a bit strange. I liked their pork and apple cider one better.

After lunch I toured Bath Abbey, officially the Abbey of St Peter and St Paul. It was another great work of architectural art, and I wandered around staring at the ceiling for a bit longer than I should.

Ceiling: the stained glass panels there include 56 images from the life of Jesus (none of them would match the Tring tiles, though, unfortunately)

 The main hall. Stunning.

The ceiling

Then I went to the Roman Baths. This was the first museum I paid to get into, and I wasn't too happy about it but oh well (at least I got a student discount, saved a couple of pounds). It was worth it, I spent at least two hours learning about how the Romans in the area lived and viewed the baths. Although I wasn't too happy about the audio guide (the voiceover spoke annoyingly slowly but there was no other way to get the information, the little plaques gave only a sentence or two about the general subject matter of the exhibits), I learned quite a lot. What's special about these baths more than others in Roman Britain and even Rome is that they also had great religious significance. Because the heat source was a thermal spring and not generated by a furnace, sizeable temple to Sulis Minerva was constructed as well (the locals already worshipped their goddess of healing and wisdom, the goddess Sulis, here so the Romans tacked Minerva onto the name). The actual thermal spring was not used as a bath, housed instead by the temple.

The Great Bath (the green color is due to algae, I think)

A Roman drain. This is the closest we got to the water straight out of the thermal spring. It has so many minerals in it, it turned the rocks orange wherever it touched. Like Midas, but....gross.

Close-up shot. The steam coming off this water was powerful.

The baths were extensive, containing rooms for changing, massaging, immersion bathing, general bathing, and even a cold plunge. There was also some later English stuff piled on top of the baths, such as the terrace above it, with sculptures of important figures from Romain Britain like Julius Caesar and Hadrian.

Hadrian and Minerva

The thermal spring itself was not so sacred to the British; they raised the water level and bathed in it just like any other hot bath.

The thermal spring; that orange line around the walls is the water level during the British usage of the baths

After a great long tour, I got to take a cupful of the healing bath water, with 43 minerals! It tasted almost as good as Tempe water, it was quite warm, and I still have a cold so there you go. Maybe it doesn't work on skeptics.

After that, I got some cream tea (tea with a couple of bicuits and jam, around four o'clock) which was delicious, and then I FINALLY bought yarn! I'm going to make gloves, in a lovely robin's egg blue color.

For dinner I went to Yak Yeti Yak, a Nepalese restaurant complete with sitting on floor cushions. Feeling budgety, I only ordered an appetizer (pork dumpling type things, quite delicious); however, the minimum for a card was ten pounds and I didn't have any cash. So they waived the cost. I felt terrible about doing that to them, but also very happy.

I meandered past the Abbey on the way home and heard the organ rehearsing. I leaned against the front door and listened in for a bit; though I felt a bit awkward leaning against the Abbey doors, it was beautiful music and I enjoyed the sonorous end to my evening.

*For example, this guy whose name was I think Robert Adam was a big guy in Bath: he discovered a plot to kill George II (possibly George III or another king) and became a millionaire. Not a millionaire in today's money, a millionaire in 18th-century money. Unbelievably rich, and that was his first fortune (his second was in becoming the supplier of the Bath stone which became the building material for the entire city). He had a nice view of the surrouding hills but he thought trees were a bit boring so he had a folly built out on a ridge to add some interest. It still stands, and it's called Sham Castle because that's what it is: literally just a facade of a castle. I have more.

Day 7: Goodbye, crazy London. It's time for a relaxing Bath.

Many apologies for how late this is. I have not had the most reliable internet connection in the past couple of days so now you get three at once!

Overslept on my last morning in London so I didn't do quite as much today as I had hoped to. Admittedly, my final day schedule wasn't going to be completed anyway because it included at least six hours of activities to be crammed into three. But waking up at eight thirty didn't help anything (what happened to me? A month ago I was waking up at six every day, even when I had gone to sleep at midnight or one. Maybe I need the threat of homework to wake up properly...).

I did have the opportunity to see Southwark Cathedral (according to Rick Steves that's pronounced SUH-thuck but I never heard anyone say it so I can't be sure), which was gorgeous and free, unlike Westminster Abbey (I spent all my money getting here and having a place to sleep at night so I'm going for all the free stuff this time around, I'll hit all the other sites when I visit as a rich engineer). It turns out William Shakespeare attended this church, and there has been a church operating here longer than anywhere else in the London area.

The main hall of the cathedral

A statue of Shakespeare; he's not buried here but he did attend this church

I then made my way into Tate Modern, one of the two big free museums I had not yet attended (the other is the Victoria and Albert Museum). I should probably have attended the other, since modern art and I don't get along very well. There was one exhibit about artists which have explored unusual materials for their paintings. As in not paint. As in not paintings. I kid you not, there was one piece labeled Untitled painting (mirror on canvas). It was composed of a mirror, attached to a canvas. That was it. Apparently, as the viewer walks by and adjusts their hair or whatever, they become part of the exhibit, which is a work of pure genius by whoever it was. Which means one of two things: there is a work of pure genius behind everyone's bathroom sink, or a great level of genius and mastery is required to glue a mirror to some fabric on a wood frame. I loved the National Gallery, but as soon as the switch is made from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries I just don't understand anything anymore. This is why I enjoyed the Book of Mormon more than Once.

After the confusion of Tate, I got one last drink at the Starbucks in front of St Paul's Cathedral. This is where I spent most mornings and wrote the majority of my blog posts in London. It was nice having something so majestic to view as I sipped tea or coffee and struggled with wifi connections, and the people-watching could be intensly entertaining. I never knew how many people use their iPads as cameras. Some Asians have selfie sticks, these rods the length of a cane, at the end of which one can attach a phone and take selfies from a distance. Then they all pose for a good five minutes while they get themselves into the best positions to show themselves off before they move on.

A few farewell shots. I really liked this place

I regretfully bid farewell to the cathedral (another place that charged a rather steep entrance fee, which I will visit next time) and took the subway to Paddington Station. On the way to the Tube, I discovered Temple Bar, something of which I had heard but about which I knew nothing. I had always thought it was in the Temple area, given the name: not the City.

Temple Bar (that's a spire of St Pauls Cathedral behind and above it)

It turns out that it was in the Temple area; it was the gate into the city of London on that side until traffic flow became too great and it became constrictive. At that point it was purchased by a wealthy man whose name escapes me and moved out of there to somewhere else, where it slowly deteriorated. Then, somewhat recently, it was purchased by I think the Corporation of London (which is essentially the municipal government of the center part of London, like we would say the City of Corvallis--at least that's the impression I get which is mostly supported by Wikipedia) and set up by St Paul's Cathedral in a completely pedestrian zone, reopened in 2004.

I also walked past a little garden in what used to be a church, I think Christchurch or Gracechurch. It had been set up to resemble the interior of a church, with rows representing pews and those tower things representing columns (I think).

Church garden!

By the way, if anyone is planning a visit to London any time soon, I have an Oyster card with about two pounds on it that they can use.

Paddington Station is quite nice, nothing like London Bridge Station which is, in the words of your favorite travel writer, "a place where dreams wait to die." If anyone has heard of the Paddington Bear stories, this is where he was found and there's a little shop full of stuffed bears and copies of the books (for those unfamiliar with this, there are some children's books about a sentient teddy bear that a small family found in Paddington Station: they're pretty good if I remember correctly from fifth grade). I sat in a very nice train (also very different from the tired nag with the uncomfortably squishy seats which took me to Brighton and back) for about ninety minutes and arrived in the most gorgeous city I have seen yet.

Even though prettiest of three cities is not saying much, Bath is really beautiful. All the buildings are made of Bath stone, this lovely yellow material that gives the place an uncommon cohesiveness. But it's not creepily uniform; the architecture does show variation from the few ancient Roman structures that remain and the sixteenth-century Abbey of St Peter and St Paul through to the Georgian houses and holiday apartments created when Bath became the premier holiday destination of all of England.

The Parade Gardens with the city center in the background

There is a long, narrow park called Hedgemead Park which was created when a landslide destroyed a bunch of houses along the road; eventually after changing hands a few times, the property was given to the Corporation of Bath and then made into a park. The important thing to note is that the park had a pagoda thing where I waltzed a bit.

I wandered for a bit (finally found a yarn shop that looks promising) until I met my host for the next two nights, Natalie, a very sweet lady with a three-year-old son I wasn't prepared for. He's really cute, but I don't know how to act around children even when I do understand what they're saying (combine three-year-old speech with a strong accent and you get complete incomprehensibility to an American). I eventually got up and walked around a bit until eight, when I joined the Bizarre Bath Comedy Tour, which provides absolutely no factual information about the city or its history (well, essentially none: I did become a bit more familiar with the layout and saw some informative signs about the oldest house and the designer of the interior of the Pump Room in the Roman Baths) but it was funny. No Wulffs should attend, though, since it did involve chucking a stuffed bunny into a river as part of a "magic trick" (he was rescued, don't worry).

I had forgotten that nothing is open after nine o'clock in Britain so my intentions to get dinner after the tour were shot, so I returned to the flat and ate some bread.

Day 6: Not actually a repeat of day 2

Finally got a proper night's sleep last night, and it was wonderful. I woke up refreshed and ready to start the day.

I visited the British Museum again today, walking to it with a more southerly route (through the Temple district) than I had on Friday. I'm very glad I did, for I got to see the front of the Royal Courts of Justice and also walked past a little shop right across the street from it. Twinings, the tea company that has been in operation in that location (and owned by the same family) since 1706. It is the oldest company to still be operating in the same premesis, and it has been selling tea there (though it started with coffee because tea used to be insanely expensive, we're talking one pound of the stuff for more than the yearly salary of a lawyer) since before the United States was even a dream in the mind of a young colonial. It's this long, narrow shop with shelves full of different teas at the front and a little bar with free sampling at the back. I took full advantage and tried a host of delicious teas. My favorite was a green tea blend called Butterflies in Love. It smells like an English garden and tastes like no tea I have ever had. The staff were incredibly friendly, giving me suggestions for what else in London to visit (I unfortunately was not able to follow those) and for things to do with tea, like bake and cook with the leaves (I definitely plan to try this). The woman doing the sampling thought I was English for some reason--I guess because I don't have a really broad Southern or East Coast accent. I should have asked where she was from, but I feel like she was possibly Italian.

The Twinings shopfront

I finally extricated myself from the deliciousness and went to the British museum to catch all of the things I had missed. There were some gorgeous Chinese paintings and another great room (because it was almost empty) containing classical columns (mostly the tops of classical columns, actually), many of which were rescued from the rubble of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. They were astonishingly large; I had always imagined them to be about two or three feet wide but they were more than twice that.

Column topper, with obliging but unwitting tourists for scale

I learned from this adventure that I really like giant scuptures that are at least three millenia old; the rest I could take or leave. Although there were some amusing carved wooden tiles from a church in East England that I actually learned about on a free tour on Friday but forgot to mention then; they're called the Tring Tiles and they describe the previously unrecorded stories of Jesus growing up.

The Tring tiles

The Church of England (or the Pope, I can't remember how old these are) frowned upon this severely, but local churches would have stories that diverged a bit from the canon, describing the life of Jesus in the big blank space between his birth and his adulthood. They were a bit cheeky, so I'm not surprised that those higher up were less enthused. For example, in one of them Jesus can be seen making little puddles in the ground. Another boy comes up and messes with one of them, for which transgression Jesus kills him. Then the parents all speak and Jesus is properly chastized and he returns the boy to life. There are many similar tiles, so the other stories are mostly about how all the parents in the village don't want Jesus to play with their children; they take actions such as hiding their kids in an oven, but no attempt to protect their children from the son of God is particularly successful. I wonder if Christopher Moore knew about these tiles when he was writing Lamb.

I had a bit less stamina today than yesterday, so I left after about two or three hours and went off in search of Covent Garden, which sounded interesting enough for something to do while I waited to see Once  (at the box office I got  surprisingly cheap front-row seats, although I later found out that front row means that your eyes are at the level of the stage floor and it's a bit difficult to see over). After quite a long time of increasingly frantic searching, I finally gave up and decided to go sit for a bit at Leicester Square instead. Ten seconds later I saw a sign for the Covent Garden Market. It was a very nice place and I had some more lovely shopping experiences (I would say that Londoners are wonderful but all of the good retailers I've met so far have been from Europe).

I finally had Indian food tonight! I got a biryani which a friend of mine from work back at ASU had reccommended. It was delicious. Then I hurried over to the Phoenix Theatre to see Once, a sweet and charming musical about music and Czech people and Dublin.

The Phoenix interior; it was quite a pretty theater 

During intermission (and before the show) guests could walk up on stage and get a drink. An odd but space-efficient place for a bar. Before the show, the cast played a bunch of songs on stage while everyone got their drinks. It was surreal but awesome.

I didn't like the ending so much, because I was expecting a bit more wrap-up and suddenly the lights came up and everyone was bowing and everyone else was clapping, but it was a masterful performance with great comedy and great music. On the whole, I very much enjoyed both stage productions I saw this week, but if I were to see one of them again it would be The Book of Mormon because I am an uncultured swine.

Day 5: If you bring a rain jacket, it won't rain. If you don't...

Visited Brighton today! Took the train out of London Bridge Station and in an hour I was on the seaside! It was a nice little town, typically English-looking and remarkably similar to Newport, Oregon (but British). The ocean was this interesting pale jade green color, not the dark grey-blue that I'm so used to seeing in the Pacific. The beach was covered in these pretty orange pebbles. It was actually quite nice...except for the weather.

I had checked with the Weather Channel and supposedly it was going to stop raining before I arrived. This did not happen. After a rather wet walk along the beachside looking for a certain street that was supposed to have interesting shops and restaurants, I slipped into a coffee shop and tried to dry out. I couldn't see a window from where I was sitting, so I checked the Weather Channel again to see if it was still raining (incredibly lazy, I know, but I was cold and my spirits were low). They said it had stopped raining. It hadn't. I stopped trusting the Weather Channel for the UK and went out into the drizzle because there was really nothing else to do. My fleece was still damp and in fact still hasn't dried out.

Brighton is actually a pretty little city. There's this one place called the Lanes which is full of cute little shops, most of which sell very expensive jewelry. There's also this Pavilion that was apparently a royal residence in the 1800s but honestly looks a bit ridiculous now, it's got all of these turrets and whatnot that don't fit with any other British architecture I've ever seen.

The Lanes. There were some cool little pubs and shops in these narrow walkways.

The Royal Pavillion

The Pavillion actually had pretty neat grounds; they had been restored to their original condition and are kept in the Regency style (hence the longer grass)

I wandered for a bit more, at this point killing time until I could go back to London and get out of the rain, and got lost trying to find a yarn shop. I ended up sitting in a mall for a bit just to get out of the rain and find some wifi (I'm sorry, it won't happen again), got kicked out of that because they were closing, and had dinner in this awesome little tapas place. I had just about the least Mexican chorizo that it's possible to make, and an absolutely gorgeous mojito. 

My meal was shaped like a smiley face!

Beautiful and tasty mojito

10/10 would go back there if I'm ever in Brighton again.

Day 4: Don't visit a famous museum on a Sunday

So I've been making a grevious mistake. I kept on planning to visit the London Bridge for its famous shape and history. Well, I walked across it this morning accidentally, and realized I've been thinking of the Tower Bridge all this time when I said London Bridge. The London Bridge is actually this flat concrete thing, arguably the least interesting bridge over the Thames.

The Tower Bridge, from the London Bridge

The London Bridge and the Shard

Then I went to the Natural History Museum, which was not the best idea I've had, but I had to see it at some point. There was a ten-minute line to get in, and another line to see the dinosaur room (I elected to avoid that one), but the crowds were't too bad, and like all of the museums I've visited here, the building itself was almost as fascinating as the pieces it contained. The grand entrance hall was gorgeous.

That little white figure down at the far end is a statue of Darwin. There were little sculptures of monkeys climbing the columns and all sorts of natural science touches.

In keeping with the grand Shear tradition, my favorite room was the emptiest one: in this case, the Hall of Minerals. I'm not sure if that's the actual name, but it definitely deserves the title "Hall."

The most epic rock collection in the entire world

Since it wasn't quite as exciting as dinosaur bones or human origins, it was pretty empty. I pored over the cases for close to an hour, looking for interesting minerals. I found the Oxides section and looked for ZnO, the metal I worked with at ASU. I had to look through all of the oxides to find it because I'd accidentally missed the very first case. But I'm glad of that, I got to see some fascinating stones. 

This is Goethite. I hope it was named after Goethe.

Heh heh...sorry Dad...

FINALLY found ZnO, which I now know is called Zincite. I've never seen it on the macro scale before.

After that, I ate lunch at Trafalgar Square and visited the National Gallery, which is again as beautiful as its exhibits. I couldn't take any pictures inside, but there were some very nice Dutch paintings; I also liked the Impressionists and this one called The Fighting Temeraire by Turner. I'm not sure if it was the later hour or the fact that an art museum is decidedly not interesting to children, but it was pleasantly uncrowded and young-family free. I'm definitely appreciating art more as I grow older, but I'm still not great with the modern stuff (although admittedly my only experience with Tate Modern is this one surrealist section that did not resonate with me at all). 

I ate dinner as I walked back to my hostel, this time along the north bank of the Thames. Although the north side of the river is generally more interesting, the south bank is definitely the better place to walk. I kept having to detour around construction and other blockages, and the walk just wasn't nearly as picturesque. I did get to stroll around the Tower of London, though, which was fascinating. It was dwarfed by the skyscrapers just west of it, but that's unsurprising considering that almost a millenium of technological change has developed in the interim.

New and very old London are right next to each other

I crossed the Tower Bridge, taking upwards of an hour because the view was so nice I kept stopping to look around. I watched the river from the exact center, where the thing splits if a tall boat comes by. It was kind of exciting to be straddling the two halves. I strolled slowly home and almost got to sleep nice and early to get a full night's rest, until I found out that my room was full tonight. A couple of recent Berkeley graduates stayed the night; they were pretty cool, they're celebrating graduation in the same way that I am except that they're doing Europe instead of the UK. 

Sunset over the Thames. I'm glad I did the north bank today, because yesterday had a much more exciting sunset that I got to watch from the south bank

The Tower Bridge at dusk. 

Tomorrow: Brighton! I get to see a British beach! It won't be quite as excitingly coastal as I'd like, though, because it's barely going to reach 60. I should have brought gloves, my hands have been cold since I landed. Maybe there's a yarn shop there and I can whip something up...

Day 3: Notting Hill diversions

Today was not as productive as I would have liked. I started slowly, rising late because I could not sleep last night (a combination of excitement over the play, the two very argumentative dogs that held a debate around one in the morning, and my hostel roommate's snoring). I finnally got our of bed around 8:30 and Tubed over to Notting Hill for the Portobello Market. I got a few things there, a neat little print of pulleys from 1789 and a copy of Three Men in a Boat because I'm already almost halfway through Playing the Moldovans at Tennis.

I had lunch at the Churchill Arms, this semi-famous pub that's wedded to the Churchill Thai Kitchen. It's very strange, you walk into a fairly traditional pub that's covered in Churchill memorabilia and down some steps and suddenly you're in a butterfly-themed Thai place covered in potted plants. I sat in the Thai place and had a duck dish that was a bit sweet for my tastes. I have not had good luck with food so far on this trip. On the other hand, I'm doing all right with beverages, if you call starting to enjoy Starbucks black coffee without any sweeteners good. Hopefully American Starbucks has the same coffee.

After lunch I found a little stationery shop that luckily enough sold a camera. It seemed pretty decent (a Canon IXUS 132, don't know if that's something sold in the US but it's about as good as my old A1200 before it started malfunctioning, and it's got twice the optical zoom) so I got it for 60 pounds, which included a free 8Gb SD card. It's working out pretty well so far! I went to a Starbucks to charge the battery (good thing I have an adapter now, I'll need it back in the States because this thing does not take AAs) and met this very friendly, very chatty woman named Stephanie. I ended up spending three hours in her company because I was too passive to say that I wanted to be alone, so we wandered around Hyde Park and saw Kensington Palace and the outside of the Natural History Museum because it was closed.

Statue of Queen Victoria by Kensington Palace (where Prince William currently lives with his wife and son)

Queen Victoria's memorial to Prince Albert

I finally escaped (she was actually very nice and I'm glad I met her, I just wish it wasn't for so long) and went to Leicester Square to see if I could get a good deal on the musical Once (I'm hooked now) and wandered home from there. I got a bit lost and popped out into Trafalgar Square, which has some impressively tall statues.

I don't remember which king this is (I think it's a king), but he seems to be looking up at Lord Nelson who is apparently looking in the direction of the battle where he died

I wandered into St. James's Park, which is quite pretty and has a nice little Birdkeeper's house we could look at but not enter. I tested my camera's macro capability (it seems pretty good) and got a firsthand experience of how fearless the squirrels are in this part of the world.

This guy introduced himself by jumping onto my shoulder. Nearly gave me a heart attack.

I walked home via Westminster and finally got a good view of Big Ben, heard it ring the :45 bell but not the hour. I was mostly really hungry at this point, so I was more interested in finding a place to eat.

Big Ben looking majestic as usual. I was lucky enough to come by around magic hour, when the light is just so pretty.

I had been told to eat all the Indian food I could, so I decided to try to find an Indian restaurant while I walked back along the river. No dice. I was practically doubled over in hunger and I really needed a restroom by the time I gave up and went into the next decent-looking pub I saw. Aaaand their kitchen wait was about an hour because of some snafu, so I got some fries and a cider and that was my dinner. Again, terrible luck with food so far, although my grocery experience has been quite pleasant for the most part.

This was about the time that it started to get really dark. The sun finished setting while I ate (it was quite a nice sunset) and the lights were coming on in some of the buildings. I strolled home enjoying the evening atmosphere (but not the temperature, it was a bit cold for the little cardigan I had brought for the day). There were street musicians providing a nice ambience and really interesting water reflections from the lights on Millenium Bridge (the one that the Death Eaters broke in the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince if anyone needs some possibly helpful context). 

I don't know what this place is called but it had the coolest lighting

St. Paul's Cathedral

I tried photographing the reflections under the Millenium Bridge but had little hope that I could catch the swiftly shifting patterns with any success. I got some really interesting shots, though, completely surpassing my expectations. Go little camera go!

One thing I forgot to mention was the interesting street performers I saw on the way back from Leicester Square. There were some really cool breakdancers and also a magician who had some great patter, he was pretty funny. 

I was too slow to catch the bit where one of the guys (there were three together) was spinning on his head like an upside down figure skater; these guys were impressive

He's shuffling a deck of cards behind his back

All in all, a pretty good day despite not going quite as planned.