Doing the Tourist Thing

We are realizing that there isn't much time left to do the famous things here, so we decided to knock a few off the list on Monday.  During the summer the changing of the guard happens once a day at 11:30.  We were a bit lax on the timetable that morning, but still managed to arrive at 11:15.  (We've been on the go for over a month and a half, we are a little tired some times. - Eric)  The crowds were incredible, but we still managed to find a spot with half a view. The ceremony started with a lot of shouting from the captain followed by a lot of stomping and gun clapping by the guard.  Then we heard the band off in the distance and they marched in followed by the new guard.  They all marched around and stomped and yelled for awhile.  Then the band set up in a semicircle and played for 10-15 minutes.  This was all concluded with more stomping and yelling and the old guard marched off.  It was interesting to see once, but the whole thing is quite ridiculous.  That's ok though, standing on your tippy toes sandwiched next to a smelly tourists for an hour made the whole experience worth it.  We left in search of food, which led us by the guards quarters.  We stopped to watch for a bit, but they weren't very still, even talking to each other.  (And drinking water. -Eric)  Maybe they're the new guys in training, who knows.  We found a bridge over the Thames, and on the other sides there were street performers all down the paths.  (There was this guy, least I think it was a guy, in a Spiderman suit bending all around in every direction.  He kept looking at me weird... -Eric)  We got some Chinese food and ate watching the river.  Afterwards we got in the queue for the London Eye, which is a big Ferris wheel with bubble things attached so you have 360* views.  The line for tickets alone was 10 minutes, and afterwards we got to see a 4D movie about what to look for.  Then we had another 10 minute wait to get on the attraction.  The view from the top was really neat, and it took about 30 minutes to get all the way around.  We grabbed an ice cream afterwards, and then walked the the other side of the river to see Big Ben.  Eric wanted to find some shops to look for clothes, so we wandered aimlessly all over the city till we found a store.  That's not really fair, I think he knew what he was doing, but it was a lot of walking. (I so had everything under control. I knew exactly where we were. We were just supposed to be some where else. -Eric)  Found a nice store and got some ties, and then finally went home.  (I got a cool shirt too. But wait til you all see Blythe's new tie. It's awesome.  -Eric) As usual here is the picture reel, I tried to edit out some of the changing of the guard pictures, got a little camera crazy there.