Sometimes it's fun to be a tourist. Especially when exploring your own neighborhood

Here are some pictures we took on our walk to Buckinham Palace and the bus ride to Big Ben. These first pics are in Kensington Gardens, which is about 3 minutes from where we're going to be living...









Buckingham Palace
Missed out on the changing of the guard, but I did get some neat pics of them anyway. The Palace itself it incredible - it felt like we'd jumped into a movie or something.




The Canadian War Memorial
This was really cool and totally unexpected (reminded me of a certain trip to DC when we kept finding monuments by accident). We noticed a very pretty water feature in the park outside the Palace and wandered over to it to look. Jeremy noticed a plaque embedded into the ground nearby that explained what the monument was - it was a nice surprise to find something honoring Canada so near the Palace, where thousands of people wander around, looking.




Big Ben & Westminster Abbey
Instead of forking over 20 pounds each to pay for some tourist bus ride, we've been riding around on the double-decker buses to see the sights - a lot cheaper and we're getting to know our way around the city in the meantime. Plus you can drink beer on the buses.
We had planned on going to see Big Ben at night because it's pretty amazing when all lit up (as you can see) and it was an unexpected bonus to find Westminster Abbey right across the street. Also lit up, but with much dimmer lights, it was completely gorgeous at night. I get the feeling that early morning might be the best time to visit the Abbey though - the stained glass windows must be completely amazing in sunlight.







I've got tons more pictures - will add them soon.

Things are definitely starting to get more fun and interesting now. This weekend we have the Notting Hill Carnival - so I'll definitely post pictures of that. Check out their website - it looks like it'll be pretty amazing.