Wandering Around London

Over the past two days I have visited the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, the national gallery, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the London Bridge, and Trafalgar Square. All of these sights were amazing; they are steeped in history and were created and have been maintained by some of the richest people of their day. I am really glad that I live in an age where people of all backgrounds and elasticities can see these places. However, rather than describing these famous attractions, I have decided instead to write some of my more random thoughts about London.

I have noticed that the sidewalks around London have a tendency to trip people. London's sidewalks are made of blocks of cement about 4 square feet in size which are held together with standard mortar. When you glance at the walks, they look flat; however, on closer inspection there are many places where the blocks are offset about a half inch. I have seen numerous people stumble, and saw one lady fall flat on her face, when the toes of their shoes catch on the edge of an offset.

Another thing that I have noticed is that very few people in London own dogs. This is in stark contrast to Seattle, where it seems a good 25% of the residents own dogs and act like their dog is their child. In fact, I can only remember seeing one dog in the past three days.

Finally, I didn't realize that there was still a bit of animosity between the Scottish and English until I asked a guy that I met at a restaurant about cricket. Evan (a friend of mine who was in Edinburgh when I was) and I had been watching a cricket match a few days earlier, and I was really confused by the fact that score was something like 73-1. Anyway, when I asked the man in London about cricket and he began to reply, I immediately noticed that he had a Scottish accent. He said that he was from Glasgow, and he said, 'Cricket is shite; it's an English game.' That was all the description that he gave, so I guess I will have to ask someone else for an explanation of the game.

One final thought is that the changing of the guard is okay, but if you want to see a real military parade, go to West Point.