It appears that I owe you a few days worth of writing.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "No way, Lior! you said you'll write once a week!", and you're right. Technically I don't owe you nothing (Nothing! you hear me!), but it seems like I've been through so many stuff, that I should probably write it down before I start forgetting what I did. So this post is going to be extra long. I'm going to cut it to sections so you can break off whenever you want and continue reading later.

So, to the point, what have I been up to lately? Lot's of walking, mainly. Yeah, I know it's not surprising, but you have to remember that up until last week I was a complete couch potato. I'm actually kind of proud of how I'm handling it all. Never missed anything because I was too lazy to walk. That's an accomplishment for me.

Saturday, April 19th

Let's see, the day after I went to the Tower of London, I tried one of those free guided tours. It was a tour around Westminster, and it was kind of nice. not super exciting, and not super informative since I've already been there a couple of days before that, but the guide had a few fun facts that were interesting, and he brought us to see the changing of the guards in St. James Palace, which I didn't know of.

The tour started in Covent Garden which used to be part of the gardens of Westminster Abby, hence the name (Convent Garden became Covent Garden), and today is a very lively neighborhood with a market and lots of shops. We went through the neighborhood until we got to Trafalgar Square.

(Here was supposed to be a picture of Trafalgar Square with some kind of funny caption, but apparently I don't have one so...)

A bit of history for you (Yay!) - Trafalgar Square was build in honor of Admiral Horatio Nelson's victory over Napoleon's fleet off the shore of Trafalgar, Spain, in 1805. It was a really big deal since Nelson's fleet was a lot smaller than Napoleon's, and the British had a lot to lose in that battle, since the French fleet was headed towards Britain. Nelson's statue stands on top of a a tall column in the middle of the square.

 Nelson's Column. At least I have this picture

Cool story - His way of inspiring his troops was by arriving to battle wearing his full uniform, with the sword, hat and all his medals. Now, Nelson fought in a LOT of wars, so he had a LOT of medals, and usually it wasn't a bad thing, only it turned out that the day of the battle of Trafalgar was a very sunny day. Imagine him, standing on the deck of his ship, screaming commands everywhere, shining in the bright light like a tiny sun on top of the water. Now imagine you're a sniper trying to kill the enemy's admiral. Your job has just become so much easier. So yeah, he got shot. But the shot didn't kill him immediately. He died three hours later, and in those three hours he managed to lean his fleet to victory.

Cool story number 2 - After he died, his sailors didn't really know what to do with his body. They didn't want to throw him to sea, which was the sailors' way of burying their brothers, because he was too much of an important man. They couldn't bring him to London, either, because the trip was 10 days long, and the body would have rotten by then. In the end, one of the officers offered to put him in a half empty barrel of rum. The alcohol should act as a preservative, so they should be able to make the journey to London without the corpse rotting. And so they did. Problem was, the officers never told about this special barrel to the other sailors. You can imagine what happened next. In the end, the corpse arrived safely to London, though the barrel was, by then, only a quarter filled with rum.

Back to my trip, after Trafalgar Square we went through the Mall, to St. James Palace. St. James Palace is probably the most underrated palace ever. It's not that it's very beautiful or anything, but it's the official Royal Court, and is actually the most important palace the Royal Family owns. Though the Queen doesn't live there, this is where the kings of England have ruled from since Henry VIII.

There we saw the also very underrated ending of the changing of the guards. It was particularity nice because not many people know about this part, and so there weren't many people there to block the view. 

Changing of the guard at St. James Palace. Is their head really that big?

Skipping ahead a bit - We saw Buckingham Palace later (the official Royal residency), and St. James Park. Then from there we walked to Parliament Square which stands right in front of the Parliament house and there the tour concluded. 

Cool story number 3 - Apparently Big Ben isn't the name of the clock tower. In fact, it's the name of one of the bells inside the tower. The story goes that the man who designed it was a bit on the large side, and his name was Ben. So when the newspapers published a picture of Ben standing next to his huge bell, people laughed and said that they couldn't tell who Ol' Big Ben is, the bell or the man. The name stuck.

Me at Buckingham Palace. Probably the exact opposite of a selfie

The rest of the day wasn't that good. I went to the National Gallery and thought it was kind of boring. The problem with it is that there are just too many paintings there, and after a while they all start to look the same. Besides, I don't know much about art or art history, so I didn't know exactly what I was seeing. The only part that I was somewhat excited about was the Impressionist wing which was pretty impressive.

Later I just walked around Soho. At this point I was starving, and I was looking for a place to eat, but everything was shockingly expansive. I actually started feeling a bit weak, and I guess that wasn't so good for my mood, but in the end I found a nice hamburger place with reasonable prices, so everything was ok.

Sunday, April 20th

for those of you he don't know, the last weekend was Easter. Which is kind of nice, I guess, if you're Christian and you're 7 years old and you get to run around and hunt for eggs, not so much if you're a tourist. The thing about Easter is that there is a school vacation, and all the parents want to take their kids out to see cool stuff. The same cool stuff that I want to see. Yeah, Not good. adding insult to injury, it was a very rainy weekend. Why is that bad? you're asking. Well, when I saw it was going to rain all day I figured I should probably go check out the Natural History Museum. Bad idea. Such bad idea, in fact, that every parent in London had it.

Natural History Museum. Just so you know what I had to deal with

The museum itself was alright. I guess it's more suited for kids learning about Biology and Geology than for adults. Most of the museum is educational, and there aren't a lot of actual physical artifacts. There's a Volcanoes and Earthquakes section, which I thought was terribly boring (unless you're interested in the fine art of cartoon volcano illustrations), there's a huge section of stuffed animals, which wasn't as cool as it was supposed to be since I thought everything looked too plasticy, and, of course there's the Dinosaur wing.

Again, if you're a 7 years old, there's nothing in the entire world that interests you more than seeing Dinosaurs. I mean, come on, Dinosaurs! so, of course, this was the only gallery that had a line  to get into. And a huge line, at that. I had to stand 45 minutes in the rain to get inside the museum, and then another 30 minutes to see a couple of dinosaur skeletons. Not cool. 

A dinosaur and his shadow. Grrr! I'm a giant feathery lizard! Fear me!

Also, did I mention there was a room full of rocks?

Rocks.

Ok, the rocks were actually pretty cool

Monday, April 21st

Lior, stop complaining! you're saying. You're in London, have some fun. Well, I'm happy to say that the next 3 days were actually pretty good. Easter was over, and though Monday was still a vacation day, I had learned my lesson. I didn't go to the British Museum as was my intention, instead I decided to have a relaxed day in Hyde Park.

Hyde Park. Should have been called Quite-Easy-To-Find-Park really

It was a nice day. The sun finally came out, the skies were blue, birds were chirping, ducks were quacking, the whole package. I sat on the grass, leaning on a tree and decided I want to draw. I did that for a while (you can see the results on Facebook), and then I decided to go look for another interesting composition that I can draw. I started walking along the Serpentine, the long lake in the middle of the park, when suddenly, and it was really very sudden, it started raining again. I ran to the nearest shelter, completely forgetting about my quest. There goes my day, I thought, I can't sit on the grass anymore, nor can I sit on any bench. I can't sit at all, actually, and that was quite a big part of the relaxed day I was planning.

A few minutes later it stopped raining. Well, I thought, I might as well walk a bit around the lake, see all it has to offer. It's a really beautiful park, to be honest. Lots of nice places to sit and enjoy some peace and quiet, or a have a picnic, or feed the birds and watch as they crowd around your feet. I ended up walking all around the lake. On the way, I passed through 2 interesting points which are closely connected.

The first are the Italian Gardens (it's technically part of Kensington Gardens and not Hyde Park, but whatever). It's a small garden on the  north-western tip of the serpentine that's designed like a Renaissance Italian garden, with lots of water fountains and statues. The garden was dedicated to Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert, and their initials are engraved on a wall in the garden.

 The Italian Garden. Imagine the water bill

The second point was the Albert Memorial. When Albert died, Queen Victoria was devastated. The magnificent queen had a magnificent memorial for her beloved consort built. An eternal memento of their love (by the way, the Royal Albert Hall, which we now know how many holes it takes to fill, is right next to it and is named after the same person).

The Albert Memorial. I don't think it's funny, actually

So I was standing there at the entrance to Hyde Park, after having walked quite a bit for a relaxed day at the park, and I was looking at my map trying to figure out what to do next. Eventually, I managed to convince myself that this is not going to be a relaxed day, and I decided to go to Green park which is just nearby.

On the way, I passed through some historical monuments (mostly World War II stuff, not super interesting). The park itself was surprisingly serene. I'm saying surprisingly because it is adjacent to Buckingham palace, so you might expect that all the tourists would pour to it in one point or another, but they don't. They stay at the gates of the palace, and this green haven remains almost bare.

It's missing something of the livelihood of Hyde Park, but what it lacks in energy, it makes up for in charm. It's the kind of place you take your date out to have a romantic picnic. 

The thirds park of the day was St. James Park, which is just beyond Buckingham Palace. It used to be a hunting area for the king, but now it's just another tourist attraction. What doesn't happen in Green Park, happens times a thousand in St. James. Every tourist that goes to Buckingham Palace must go through St. James first, so it is filled with them. Which is a bit of a shame actually, since it has a great potential.

 Views from St. James Park. Who had the brilliant idea of putting the palace right next to it?!

Cool story number 4 - In St. James there used to be a Chinese bridge and a Pagoda right next to it. They were built for a party in the 19th century (don't remember the exact year, sorry), and for the event they were filled with fireworks that were supposed to be the main event. On the night of the party, though, something happened, and the fireworks caught fire before they were supposed to. The entire thing went up in flames. The unsuspecting audience thought it was part of the show, so for a very long time they didn't try to put out the flames. When they did, however, it was too late and both the pagoda and the bridge were lost forever.

And that's it for now folks. I know I'm not done telling all I've been up to, but it's getting late and I'm getting tired of writing. I'll try to continue tomorrow or the day after that.

Until then, stay cool and don't forget to mind the gap,

Lior