8 Miles

So today was insane! Well, yesterday, actually, but let's just pretend that today is the Fourth of July. So Happy Independence Day, America. We got up, had breakfast, checked out of the hostel, stopped by the Westminster (now UMI for some reason- that actually sounds like a disease or something) and the Prince Edward and then ehaded down to Victoria to drop our stuff off. We then had about three minor/major disasters which we are just not even going to get into because it'll upset me way too much and so let's just skip ahead to about noon when we finally left Victoria and headed down towards the Westminster Bridge. It was a beautiful day, nice and sunny, and not too many clouds in the sky. We walked all the way down, past the Abbey and Parliament Square again (where we got to wish Mr. Lincoln a Happy Fourth of July) and then crossed over the Thames to the South Bank.

We walked along the Victorian Embankment, passing such buildlings like the Aquarium, the National Theatre and the OXO tower, street preformers like a beautiful cellist, a guitarist who was singing "Achey-Breaky Heart" (Shiri laughed) and "living statues" and of course, stopped in at a used book sale. Our journey led us all the way to the Tate Modern, which was deliciously weird as usual. There was this fantastic exhibit called 9 Scripts which was all about different people's reactions to the war- detainees, soldiers, lawyers of prisoners of war, etc. It was very fascinating and of course, the other exhibits of the tate left us confused and interested. My favorite was this one piece where the lady flattened over 1000 pieces of silver and then put it together into thirty arrangemetns. Pretty cool.

Next we hopped over next door to the Globe Theater. It's an awesome recreation of the old theatre that was around in Shakepseare's day. We got to do a tour and learn about the history and then go inside but we didn't really get to explore the interior at all because there was a play being rehearsed so we couldn't disturb the actors. It was kind of disappointing, but the sheer awesomeness of the Globe itself and the idea that we were hanging out sort of where Shakespeare hung out 400 years ago made the disappointment bearable. The Shakespeare freak inside of Shiri was giggling with delight. We also looked around the museum for a while but it wasn't as exciting as it could have been. They're currently putting on productions of King Lear and some other Shakepseare plays so we're going to try to go see one later in the trip.

We crossed the Millunium Bridge to St. Paul's, took a few pictures but mainly headed around to go to the Museum of London. This was the third time I had been there and the third time that almost everything but the top floor was closed. Oh well, it was all good.

Sadly, our adventures must momentarily end here since the Liverpool library is closing. More tomorrow on the weather adventures of Liverpool as well as a continuing of our long Fourth of July journey.