Pun of the Day 3

Shirt: "Stonehenge Rocks."

Me: "Hey, look at that pun."

Vishnu: "Yeah, it's pretty...hardcore."

Wicked fun

On Day 2, we took a tour around London with a sassy and self-proclaimed "too fabulous to die on a bus" tour guide. Starting in the more modern parts of London and moving toward the original Roman city, we went through many places.  The first of which being Buckingham Palace

Now, I wish I had some deep, inspirational things to say about Buckingham Palace, but I don't. It's beautiful, and I rather enjoyed seeing it again, but two things took over the visit:  

1) There were ducks in the fountain.

2) (Of which I sadly do not have a picture) selfie sticks are taking over the world. I kid you not. Everywhere I turned there was another one, a longer one, a GLITTERY one. If you didn't watch out, you could probably be skewered by one or knocked out cold. Couples using them to take pictures, one person staring into it as he walked around, I couldn't take it. Why did this have to be the thing that caught on? WHY???

Afterward, we moved around to the other significant figures, crossing London Bridge, passing the tower that holds Big Ben the Bell, jumping over each other to take pictures of the London Eye, etc. We finally made it to my favorite part of the tour:  Westminster Abbey. It's absolutely beautiful, and the history it holds is breathtaking. They have men and women from as early as the fourteenth century buried in the Abbey. Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Queen Elizabeth I, the list goes on.  It's also surprisingly challenging to tour the Abbey without stepping on a body. Although I was determined to, out of respect from the dead. I made Mr. Wheeler stop standing on top of Newton too. He laughed at me.

In our free time, we were able to run by the Tower of London and take pictures. One of the oldest buildings in London, it's very obviously medieval, looming over the rest of the landscape as you stand below it. 

  

Finally, the REAL highlight of London: Wicked.  I am not exaggerating when I say that out of the four performances of Wicked I've seen, this was the best. Elphaba's voice was incredible, rivaling even Idina Menzel's.  I still can't get over it and could probably continue gushing about it, but I won't. Instead, here's a picture of the theater it's playing in:

Can I stay here forever?

 

Pun of the Day 2

Do you know why all the fish in Paris are mad? Because they're in-Seine.

Pun of the (yester)Day!

So I just realized I meant to post this yesterday and didn't. Oops. Here's a pun anyway:

"There can be some untrustworthy characters, they're like atoms, you know, they make up everything!"

Have your seat backs in the upright position.

Passing clouds, glimpsing small sections of fields and towns, the first chords of 1901 by Phoenix resounding in my ears, when we see it: the Thames. 

This is when it finally began to dawn on me that we were, in fact, landing in London.

The flight was not bad--dinner was pfm-level, I got the flight high score in solitaire, and I was able to watch Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Like the last time I flew to England, sleep was restless. I was relying on coffee to keep my eyelids from falling, which wasn't a terrible plan.

Once we were off the plane, we met our tour guide (or, "organizer," as he prefers to be called, since that seemingly requires less knowledge of random various facts about everything), picked up our sandwiches in a box, and headed off to our hotel. Quaint, but (luckily) with wifi!

Once off the bus, we took the tube into the city, visiting Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. Fun fact: in Trafalgar Square, there is a statue of George Washington. But! Since Washington always swore that he would never set foot on British soil, the statue itself is set on soil brought from the States. Also, Piccadilly Circus is, according to Andy, "our bad attempt at a Times Square." Surprisingly enough, that's not a bad description.

From there, we wandered through Chinatown toward dinner. Something about chicken with cheese and potatoes, or maybe something about a mushroom sauce, I'm not sure, but this is what it looked like (yep, I took a picture of it. Judge me not.)

And now, I am sitting in a hotel, typing this. Look forward to a less poorly written account of tomorrow's antics!