London Day 2 & 3

It finally got sunny for an extended period of time in London today and I was in shorts and a t-shirt comfortably at last. Slept in quite a bit and pretty worn out from yesturday, so after spending a while at Greg's place with his Austrailian flatmates who are really great, I headed back into the city and straight to Buckingham Palace. From there I went to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens which were both beautiful and well worth a long period of exploring time. I stopped every few minutes to read, rest, people watch, or briefly nap.

Ended up at a cafe on the lake and bought myself some lunch. Was joined by some Scottish men who needed a place to sit with one of their young son, Hemish (drop the H for pronouciation), who was running around sharing his stuffed animal sheep - Flossy - and cookies with all the women near by. After my time there I went home right away - don't want to totally wear myself out.

Yesturday I went to the National Portrait Gallery, which was REALLY great - protratits of kings, queens and other such important folk as William Shakespear (you know, that one picture that anyone has ever seen of him?) since the Tutor period all the way up to some modern art of famous people. Personally, I enjoyed the older portraits, espeically those of famlies - the way in which each person and their place within the family unit is represented is pretty incredible. Plus, the portraits back then were so lifelike, well, it was a really good couple of hours spent.

Wandered around the Soho area and the West Side theater disctrict for a while, then towards St Paul's Catherdial. They were starting a service in a half hour, so I got to go in for free, but did not get to go far. Which was enough, honestly. When all the really amazing artwork is on top of a cathedrial ceiling, being a little farther away from directly below it is not that disapointing, and certainly not worth £13. Then I walked all the way down to London Tower and saw the outside of that and the ancient moat and barriers and stuff, as well as signs pointed towards 'beheading'. This historic site was closed and also expensive, so I opted to not to back today and enjoy that I saw the outside.

All in all, I've wandered a LOT in the last few days and I'm looking foward to staying in for the rest of the night. Heading to Belfast tomorrow morning, so goodbye to London for now.