London Calling

One thing we made sure to do while in London was visit their famous outdoor markets, and the first on our list was Portobello Road market in Notting Hill.








Notting Hill is a really cute little part of London with brightly colored buildings and cute little parks interspersed between them.  It also has a really fun outdoor antiques market (featured in the movie Notting Hill) that we spent a couple of hours wandering around.

















The shops here are all full of funky little items and clothes, and there are cute little pubs on every other corner including this one here which I'm fairly certain they named after me :)













We also made our way to Camden Market on the north side of town, which is another outdoor market, but with a decidedly different atmosphere.   

These shops also featured funky little items, but there were a lot more tattoo and piercing stores, as well as a bigger food scene here.  We enjoyed several different things from the various food stands here including falafel (which wasn't as good as it was in Paris but still yummy) and some 'bang bang chicken' which was very good and being sold by a super entertaining man with a crazy deep voice handing out free samples of bang bang chicken for "every human!"  We got to enjoy all these yummy foods while sitting on these awesome old motorcycle half benches overlooking the canal.   It was a really fun place.

 

 Camden also has a really fun section of these kind of underground markets called the Horse Tunnel Market because they used to be old horse stables.  The entrances all have these huge bronze horse statues and as you walk though there's a strong smell of incense, hookahs, and various spices from all the different types of food for sale around the place.  The little shop/stalls are so fun to look through, some of them have the most random things! Everything from little cheesy souvenirs, to handmade art and jewelry to antiques and old books and records.  Definitely a fun place to explore! 

Actually, one of the things we were the most surprised about in London was the food.  Since we were under the impression that England didn't have very good food, we were pleasantly surprised by the great food we found, including this international food festival we came across while walking along the South Bank.  After not having access to macaroni and cheese for the last few months, you know we had to go for it (I recommend the Kanye Western - mac and cheese with barbecue sauce and hot dogs - mmmm).






We also decided to take some time to walk through the Kensington gardens as Erin and I have a soft spot for outdoor areas and parks and were happy to find that Kensington Gardens is a beautiful park!  We were greeted by this little ambassador who was anything but shy and came right up to say hi!

 The park is huge and filled with gorgeous gardens, statues, ponds and memorials.  We saw this cute little swan family and actually witnessed a swan rumble when a third adult swan tried to crash the party.  It was very entertaining actually, the two big male swans swam circles around each other while stretching out theirfeathers as big as possible, like some crazy cross between synchronized swimming and a West Side Story fight scene!  We also came across this adorable little bunch crossing the path in order to go play in the pond.  OMGoodness, so cute!

There is a big presence of Peter Pan in the gardens, complete with a kids play park that has a huge pirate ship and a gazebo with a neverland clock on the top.  Pretty awesome place to play if you're a London kid!  



There's also a great peter pan statue in the park, which I was driven to see for some reason and made Erin walk across the whole park to go find!  We finally made it and it was everything I hoped it would be!

  I think one of the reasons there is such a pepter pan presence in the Park is because it's also the site of the Princess Diana Memorial (The Neverland playground is also dedicated to her) who had a passion for helping children.  The memorial is a really beautiful circular water fountain that flows in a huge ring around and around with little waterfalls interspersed. 

 Here's a bonus pic for you, no real story to go with it, just like it because of the cool gate and the iconic London Taxi!!!

 
  And speaking of those famous cabs, we saw some really fun decorated cabs in London, like this one with a Union Jack pattern on it!  We saw some other fun ones like a Coach themed one with multicolored stripes as well as a black and white one with English words and phrases covering the whole thing.  It's the little things :)

And to mention another little thing, the UK also has all these little blue plaques everywhere that denote buildings that once housed famous or influential people, such as this one Erin spotted near a medical sciences college - the inside of the building looked like it was being used as a laboratory - very fitting!

Along with the great landmark attractions London has to offer, it has some pretty neat things inside too :)   All the London National Museums are free to enter so it's easy to see lot's of amazing things without spending a ton of money! 

 

We were first in London about a month before the Olympics were going to start, and the British Museum had a display of gold medals for the upcoming games. 

 Here are some of our favorite things from many museums around London!

                                                   The Rosetta Stone 

The British Museum had a hands on exhibit while we were there and my teacher self couldn't resist the opportunity!

playing pose like the statue :)

   Dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum

If you can't tell by the fact that the T-Rex is completely blurry in the back of my picture, it is in fact, a huge, animatronic, moving T-Rex dinosaur model.  Pretty awesome, probably for kids, still very entertaining for 20 somethings!
















We also got to see this BEAUTIFUL Chihule glass chandelier in the Victoria and Albert museum.  I love love love Chilule glass and was so excited to see this piece!

Special exhibit in the V&A museum full of beautiful gowns!

 One of Erin's favorite places, the science museum, she was loving the space stuff!

One of the coolest things we saw in any of the museums was this exhibition on a symphony orchestra where you walked through the different musical sections and got the perspectives of the various musicians.  As you moved from section to section, the screens showed the musicians of that section, and the music you heard emphasized those particular instruments as well.

There were also some more hands on parts, one place where you could be the conductor with a play-station like virtual set up where you moved your arms around and it could sense your movements, and another where you could actually play some drums and percussion instruments they had brought in along with the symphony.  There was even a live cellist playing along with the recorded musicians.  Super cool exhibit!