London

 It would appear that the blog makers (Google?) have decided to update the format to write these blogs, and as such I can upload a lot more photos which is great. I much prefer the new set up.

Anyway! As you can perhaps tell from the photos, we had a recent trip to LONDON! We did quite a lot in a very short period of time. Alyson had never been (not even flown through Gatwick or Heathrow) so we wanted to cover quite a bit. It was mostly sight-seeing and just taking pictures from the outside although we did get the chance to actually go inside a couple of places. My brother Jamie lives in London so he was kind enough to not only let us stay in his flat, but also to show us around. I have only been to London once before actually touristing.

We saw so much stuff, as you can see from the top photo - we actually got the train from Edinburgh to London (Kings Cross). That might be a highlight for any Harry Potter fans. The next photo is Alyson standing next to some odd (I thought it was odd) wall art made entirely out of plants/grass.

 We saw a lot that first day, including Tower Bridge, which is probably one of the more famous London landmarks (not that they are lacking those in London).  I have to admit that I have a very different style of being a tourist compared to Alyson - who can go almost non-stop all day. My legs were pretty knackered after the morning.

 The Millennium bridge (also a Harry Potter feature); the Tate Modern; and St. Paul's Cathedral were also features of our Saturday morning. Jamie also took us to a place called the Borough market which was quite cool. It was basically just an immense expanse of food vendors, and Alyson managed to get a particularly tasty fresh & hot roast pork sandwich for lunch there. They had freshly squeezed lemonade as well. As you can see from this next picture we made a stop off at THE Globe theatre. This was a must for Alyson, and it is kind of cool to think how long this place has been around although I'm not a Shakespeare fan.

Thankfully for me we had planned to go and see a show which meant I would definitely get a chance to rest my legs. Purchasing tickets was actually the first thing we did on the Saturday morning. In London (as I imagine they do in New York as well) they have lots of vendors selling tickets at a discount so we managed to get some cut price tickets for... JERSEY BOYS. I have to say that out of the whole trip it was probably the highlight for me. I really enjoyed the experience.

 In the evening on the Saturday we had the chance to go on the London Eye. It is basically a glorified and giant Ferris wheel, but it's quite cool to be able to see things from on high.

 On Sunday after church we did a bit more exploring (once the rain had subsided) and went to pay a visit to our Monarch. Apparently she had forgotten our appointment and had made other plans in Balmoral. This next picture (although only showing the front portion, it is indeed much much larger) is, as you may recognise, Buckingham Palace. Below are the houses of parliament and "big ben". Apparently big ben is actually only the name of the bell and not the tower/clock.

There are many other pictures but I can only be bothered uploading so many for now. On Sunday we also saw Westminster Abbey and a couple of other things briefly, including the American embassy. It is quite a substantial complex which surprised me.

On Monday we had to leave in the early evening so we really only had time for a couple of things. We decided to go see the 'War Cabinet Rooms'. Basically this is an underground bunker complex, located underneath the Government buildings in London and used by Churchill and his cabinet during WW2. It really was fascinating. We also saw Downing Street (where the Prime Minister resides) and then went off to the British Museum. Safe to say there was plenty to see at the British Museum. Our trip down to London had been rather delayed on the train apparently because of a fire near the railway line, thankfully our trip back was less disrupted. When you add in the time it takes to get to the airport, checking in an hour early, and the time from the airport in to town, taking the train is actually much the same. The train also takes you directly from the centre of Edinburgh to the centre of London. It helped that we had 1st class tickets too, they were on a special deal and actually cost as much if not less than the other fares on offer. All-in-all this was a good trip.