A Sunny November Day in London (huh?)

London in November. That phrase just screams tourism and sight-seeing doesn’t it? Actually, in spite of the fact that it is usually chilly and cloudy, there was a gorgeous bright, sunny, and almost warm day recently. Luckily for me, I was hanging around in London long enough to see it, because I used GowithOh to rent a local apartment by the night, which cut down on costs because of the significant overhead required to run a hotel (think of all the stuff that a hotel has to pay for that you don’t necessarily need: laundry, room service, attached restaurants, etc.)

The above picture was taken in front of Westminster Abbey, which really is an impressive building. It’s right across the street from Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and other big sites. That block is pretty impressive, but it’s even more impressive when you imagine that it probably looked almost the same a few centuries ago, long before the first skyscraper was ever built. I imagine people came from far and wide to see it, and burn witches.

The poppies and crosses you see in this picture are part of a really impressive display on the grounds in front of the Abbey. There are plots of these, and each one represents a different British combat unit. I’m not sure how far back they went chronologically, but they seemed to go back to the 19th century. Each cross is in commemoration of dead soldier. It’s pretty moving and and the Abbey is a really somber, yet grand backdrop for it.

That list to the right is all the different kinds of fudge this booth in the Christmas Market offered. Look at them all! How could you ever choose? (Well, I know I wouldn’t choose Cloted Cream. Is that like a blood clot?)

If your going to sell meat at a family Christmas Market, you’ve got to choose a sexually suggestive name, right? To stand out from the crowd?

I found this so disappointing. This was in front of Covent Gardens. This is fake. It’s not a real giant topiary of a reindeer. It’s plastic.

Whats the point of that? If it’s fake anyway, why not just make a giant fake reindeer? Why go through two layers of deceit to get to a giant reindeer when you could do it in one? Or why not just be honest and bring in a real giant reindeer?

 

This was, believe it or not, a second Christmas Market. This is the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, which is much better, bigger, and sells way more Booze than the riverfront Christmas Market.

This guy was roasting chestnuts. I couldn’t tell if it was an open fire underneath there, but I’m going to say it was. Also, that Coke belonged to his partner, a gigantic Polar Bear, who was shy about being photographed.

I wanted to go on this so bad! I regret not doing it. It looked like so much fun. Maybe I’ll go back. Or maybe not. It would be weird. Maybe I can borrow somebody’s kid to go up there with me so I’m not a grown man going by myself. Borrowing a kid is less weird than that, right?