we went to London.

This past weekend we went to London. 

London is a pretty cool city. I don't want to marry it or anything like that. But I would like hang out with it as friends now and then.The city of London was romanticized via countless Disney movies and Austin Powers movies that I watched countless times so I had pretty high expectations that were not met per se, but it was still fun, and there is a lot of history there. We both enjoy history, and we like to find the oldest buildings possible. If we see a building that was built in like, 1901, we're like "LAME!"  But yeah so it was cool and stuff, but I am glad we live in the quiet beautiful countryside.


Anyway, before I let the pictures do all the work of telling you about our trip. I just wanted to talk about body odor. On Saturday, literally every time were were around a crowd of people, there was a B.O. smell. There wasn't any particular person that was always around us. But it was always THERE. I got so frustrated with it that at one point during our visit to Madame Tussauds wax museum I very obviously sniffed my own armpit (no pretending to stretch while turning your head into your armpit) just to make sure that it wasn't me and loudly declared "IT IS NOT ME!" and then proceeded to sniff Taylor's armpits because he was just as much a suspect as I. But we were both in the clear as we had deodorized ourselves before leaving the hotel in the morning. It then became clear to me that it was just a LOT of people had HORRIBLE B.O., and everyone was always lifting their arms for whatever reason, and releasing their personal stench. I started to wonder so many things, WHY? Is there no deodorant available? Was there a surge of smelly french or german tourists? Was I being punished for something? What there some kind of strike going on between the deodorant companies and the people of London? I went into a local "Boots" pharmacy and beauty store to see, and there was deodorant available at a reasonable price. Why there were so many smelly people? I may never know. But it got worse. The worst, most traumatic event during our trip was when we were on the tube (subway train for those of you who are not as culturally advanced) and it was really crowded so I was holding onto Taylor when a man stepped next to us and grabbed the bar and his OPEN SMELLY ARMPIT WAS RIGHT IN MY FACE!!  and I had to bury my face in Taylor's chest and try to suffocate myself to get away from the perpetual B.O.. After we got off I told him about it and he of course, was not in the line of stench since he is tall and he thought I was just trying to be cute. Yeah right.


Anyway, we took a 2 hour open top bus tour around the city. But our camera died so they are from our phones, but they still turned out okay. So here are some pictures from that.

                                                                 Didcot Railway Station - departure

 

Paddington Station - arrival

                                                     HEY KIDS! Look there's Big Ben!

BIG BEN, PARLIAMENT.

Looks real.

fat me and phat John Wayne.

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

An excessive amount of pictures of our new flat.

believe it or not, these are pictures that i carefully selected from a large collection that taylor took earlier. i mean he went CRAZY [as usual] with pictures. he loves our apartment. he wants to marry it. i like it too but the decor is not really my style, but meh. it's still bigger and better than our apartment in South Carolina. and it feels more like a home than a room above a pub. so i'm happy. we're happy. feast your eyes upon our new living situation!

[ and come visit.]

bedroom 

CHECK DAT fur THRow. also the light is an upside down lamp. i am amused by this.

the view from our bedroom, it's like semi-serene.

bafroom

kitchen. there's a dishwasher and a washer/dryer in this picture.

there's a fridge in this picture.

me doin my thang in the sitting room

table 

leather couches make me feel like a rich bachelor in the 1990s though.

those statues are a little creepay. aND OUR TV IS OFF THE CHAIN!

random wall art. at first i thought these were carved stones.

i love that little window seat. love love love it.

window seat.

the day taylor nearly ruined my life.

actually, i'm being dramatic.

On Wednesday we are going to get our apartment, and we decided that we were going to walk down to see and get a feel of where it's at when Tayl got off work.

So we carefully studied google map the night before to get a good feel of where we could take shortcuts since we were walking.

We followed the river, since the apartments are right by the marina, and our journey was successful.  And the walk was nice.

I like walking. And since we don't have a car, I usually just walk around the streets during the day [guess you could say, i'm a street walker]. This particular day I had I spent the afternoon running errands around town and doing some exploring to uncharted streets, and I had been walking, a lot. So when we arrived to our destination on this walk, I was started to get a little bit tired. But nothing extreme. 

Taylor had plans to play soccer (or "football") at 9 00 pm, and his ride was coming at 8 45 pm. It was about 8 00 pm when we started to head back. We got to the wharf and sat by the river and watched the boats and ducks until about 8 20 pm when we figured we should head back. 

This is the moment that I said, "Let's just go the way we came since we don't have a lot of time to get lost.' Taylor said, "Let's just go up this road. It should take us right back to the pub." Me: "I don't think it's a good idea." Taylor: "Nah it's fine come on." Me: "I'm disgruntled. But fine." So, we went that way, it wasn't long before I said, "I am pretty sure we are going WAY out of the way." Taylor: "I think you're right."  The good thing about Taylor is that he has no problem admitting that he's wrong immediately after he realizes it. The bad thing is that it doesn't change the fact we took about 4 times as long in time and distance to get back home.

My feet are still sore since I did my 10 miles of walking today in my crappy flip flops. But it's not like I  couldn't use the exercise. So I guess it's good, and we made it home alive. And, we have the ability to walk (even if it is walking in the wrong direction) which is definitely something to be grateful for.