A Day in London

Took a tour of London's central city area today.  I took the "original" Red Bus Tour.  These double decker buses are open on top and they drive in a route throughout the central city with a tour guide explaining the sites.  The beauty of this system is that you can get off at various stops, look around or go to a site, and then get back on the bus, as they come around about every 10 minutes.  Great way to see the city.  Thanks to David W. for telling me about it.

I saw the Barclays Bikes that are throughout the city.  These are bikes for hire, and lots of people rent them.  They can be dropped off at any Barclays Bike spot too.  I know other cities, such as Paris, are adopting the same idea.  The program is very successful.  Apparently, though you have to have an advanced degree to figure out how to use the machines to actually rent the bikes.  Yesterday while walking around, a woman was trying to rent a bike and asked me to help her.  After several minutes of pushing this button and that and inserting and reinserting her credit card, we gave up.  Perhaps the success of the program is attributable to its use only by Mensa members and other prodigies that can figure out how to use the rental machines.

London has some very interesting and varied architecture.  There is now the tallest building in western Europe known as "The Shard" and that roundish bullet-like building known as "The Gherkin".  Of course, one can find lots of other older buildings as well such as The Parliament Building, Westminister Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, and The Tower of London.  I found a lot of smaller, more modern buildings with very unusual and stimulating architecture.

Part of my day was spent looking for a down vest.   As a native Floridian, it is cold here --colder than I thought it would be.  I became worried that I would not be warm enough out in the country, so I was walking all over trying to find such a place.  I stumbled across a store --wouldn't you know it--  across the street from Harrods.  

Tomorrow, I leave for Land's End in the early morning; I'm in for a 9 hour bus ride.

Brian Albritton
9/6/12