1 Thames canal cruise This was a cute little hour-long cruise along the river.
2 Thames canal cruise IBM London! This one's mainly for my friend Gordon who works for IBM here in Austin. "long live the machines!
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3 Thames canal cruise Some old building! Plus cranes- it seems London is getting flooded with new construction, mainly in the form of vertical glass sky-scrapers, New York style.
4 Thames canal cruise The famous Globe Theater, where Shakespeare's plays would have been performed if the original hadn't burned down in 1613. That made sense when I was thinking it...
5 Thames canal cruise The pointy building back there is commonly refered to as 'The Gherkin', the erotic gherkin, the crystal phallus, and the towering innuendo. It's real name is just 30 St. Mary Axe, and it's mostly the headquarters for a Swiss insurance company.
6 Gherkin from Tower Bridge Eric went to the Tower Bridge later that day to snap some shots of the bridge itself and other sites.
7 City Hall This building was designed to be especially energy efficient, and uses 1/4 the energy of a typical building of it's size.
8 City Hall Here's another shot from Tower Bridge.
9 Thames canal cruise Tower Bridge!
10 Thames canal cruise approaching Tower Bridge
11 Tower Bridge Eric was on the bridge in this picture (if that wasn't obvious).
12 Tower Bridge Here's the top of one of the towers.
13 Tower Bridge detail on the tower
14 Tower Bridge inside one of the bridge towers
15 Tower Bridge This was taken from the courtyard of the Tower of London.
16 Tower Bridge just a little more bridge action
17 Thames canal cruise leaving Tower Bridge
18 Thames canal cruise Here's a battleship museum. It's interesting to look at, because before radar made everything easy to spot people would look for them with bare eyeballs. The crazy pattern painted on the ship made it very hard to see from a distance.
19 Underground sign This is in front of a Roman wall that's over a thousand years old.
20 Roman wall more wall goodness
21 Stacy and some Roman guy I forget who this was, I think it was an emporer.
22 Stacy and a big sundial I think sundials are neat, and this one had the history of London going all the way around it. Boy, London sure has burned down a lot.
23 Neptune's wang This is a memorial to the sea-faring professions, and included a naked Neptune.
24 Memorial Here's a shot of the whole memorial. It's right across the street from the Tower of London.
25 Tower of London This was high on Eric's list of things to see, since they had exhibits of all sorts of weaponry and armo(u)r.
26 Tower of London As you can see, it's not just a single tower but a large complex.
27 Tower of London There'd been fortresses there since Roman times, but the first stone towers were built by William the Conquerer.
28 Tower of London You could see a lot of pollution damage to the stones.
29 Tower of London I believe this one is called the Middle Tower.
30 Tower of London Look! An actual portcullis!
31 Tower of London just inside the complex
32 Tower of London Inside, with the brickwork in the walls visible. Some lady yelled at Eric for taking pictures; she did so while standing in front of a sign that said "photography is allowed." Nyaah on her!
33 Tower of London Steep, windy stairs. They made me a little claustrophobic; I had no idea I was going to confront that every day in Amsterdam, where the stairs were much steeper and windier than this.
34 Tower of London Look! An arrow slit!
35 Tower of London A ceiling- can you believe they did all this by hand?
36 Tower of London This was a throne room in one of the towers. Everyone was looking at the throne, so we got a good shot of the masonry around the fireplace.
37 Tower of London Eric allowing himself to be pushed into a cute photo op by me; look, he's on the throne! Squeee!
38 Tower of London stained glass windows in one of the chapels
39 Tower of London The White Tower- this was the first part built in 1078.
40 Tower of London Another tower; I think this one is the Salt Tower.
41 Tower of London I think this is part of the White Tower.
42 Tower of London You could pace around on the tops of the walls; this is a neat contrast of ancient tower and modern City Hall in the distance. You can also see the pens where the ravens live, though I hear they've been moved inside to protect them from avian flu. These are the ravens of legend: if the Tower is not occupied by ravens, the monarch will fall. So wing-clipped birds are stashed there as insurance.
43 Tower of London About that raven story- the Victorians made it all up! One possible reason's because of the popularity of Edgar Allan Poe's poem. There's only been ravens at the Tower since 1895, and there've been times during WW2 when there were no ravens. But it's a good yarn anyway, so what the hell.
44 Tower of London Here's a little chapel.
45 Tower of London A toilet! Note the plastic cover so someone doesn't actually try to take a dump there.
46 Tower of London Here's more interesting masonry details, with me there for a height comparison. Folks were quite a bit shorter back then.
47 Tower of London Pikes! These things were 12 feet long or so.
48 Tower of London As you can see, we're getting into what we called the pointy things part of the visit. Some of the weapons were very finely detailed, some were basically just sticks or clubs.
49 Tower of London Here in the middle is my favorite polearm weapon, the halberd. You can tell a lot about a person by asking them what their favorite polearm is.
50 Tower of London Swords- these didn't have any sort of edge; they were basically big metal clubs.
51 Tower of London That plain stick on the left is a longbow. I'd like to see Ted Nugent be such a bad-ass with one of those.
52 Tower of London shields with pipes in them so you could shoot a gun through them
53 Tower of London Interior decorating using firearms- this was really the decoration for this part of the tower a couple hundred years ago.
54 Tower of London more gun decor
55 Tower of London This was the armo(u)r part of the exhibit.
56 Tower of London Here's Henry VII's suit. Note both the accomodation for the middle-age spread, and the ridiculously large codpiece. Dream on, Hank!
57 Tower of London A pretty ornate suit. It looks neat, but uncomfortable as hell. Beats a spear in the brisket, I suppose.
58 Tower of London Obviously this was a gift from Japan...
59 Tower of London These two guys have been in the tower for hundreds of years- their names are Gin and Beer.
60 Tower of London These ornate suits were for some princes (forget which ones) and were pretty small.
61 Tower of London When guns started getting easier to use and more accurate, armo(u)r started getting more decorative and less useful.
62 Tower of London There was one long row of suits of various kings and their horses... not sure who this one was.
63 Tower of London Here was the tabloid exhibit describing the whole Guy Fawkes incident. It was pretty amusing, actually.
64 Tower of London This was an actual chopping block and head-chopping-off ax. I think King Henry's wives died here.
65 Tower of London A bit of decoration... it's supposed to be a lion, but it looks like a pekingese to me.
66 Tower of London Here's a Roman wall in the tower complex- built when the city was still called Londinium.
67 English pub Okay, I'm not as drunk as I look here. I'd just had a Pepsi. But Eric noticed a guy who was sitting behind me who had not moved for our entire meal except to drink. I asked him to take a picture of him, while pretending to get one of me. This is where he (Eric) had a Guinness and fish and chips.
68 Whiteley's This was the fountain in the middle of the mall near where we stayed. It looks like it used to be outside, but I thought it was a graceful, pretty piece. Plus, there were boobies! And no one seemed to mind!
