"Eye" can see for miles and miles...get it? It was a pun.

Alex and I made our way over to Buckingham Palace bright and early the next day. We had some time to kill, so we sat by an interesting fountain. It had maple leaves on it so I (correctly) guessed that it was donated by Canada!

Little kids were having a really good time throwing real maple leaves into the fountain. There were also a few pigeons having a bath.




We heard some horses from where we were sitting and went to see what was going on. There were a bunch of men in silly hats going down the street. I still don't know what/who they were. Their horses were cute though!

At this point, the crowd around the Palace gates looked as they do below:

So we decided to get closer. We stood around for about 45 minutes, admiring the architecture and people watching. We played a game where we rated how important a person was based on the car they drove through the gates in.


At 11:30 sharp, we could hear a marching band. We moved toward the road and saw the palace guards!



They marched through the gates, separating into two groups: the people with guns and the people with instruments.

Eventually, the ones with guns got into their little houses while the band ones played a Beatles medley! I love this country!


Next on our list for the day was Harrod's. It was already decorated amazingly for Christmas. I bought a new purse that was on sale (score!) and some other goodies. Alex wanted to eat lunch in the food area, because they had a feature on Spanish ham.

I decided to skip out on the fancy ham and instead got some wonderful bacon and pea soup with a ham croissant (way better choice and just as pork-centric).

We went up to the Christmas floor too! It was mesmerizing. My favorite thing was definitely the stuffed penguin that danced to the Benny Hill theme song.


We had to split pretty fast from Christmas land. We had a 3 o'clock appointment with the London Eye! (The big ferris-wheel thing).

Going on it involved standing in line for a good half-hour. Since it was the day before Halloween, parts of the park were decorated all spooky.


Finally it was time to board

We were in a capsule with a lot of little kids. These kids proceeded to climb all over the bench in the middle, lean on the doors that, if they opened, would lead them to falling hundreds of feet into the Thames, and generally tried to give me a heart attack. How do parents not freak out about this stuff???

The view was beautiful though.









As I got off, the lady yelled at me to move along and not take a picture. I did anyway.

There was a movie theater really close by and it was showing HARRY POTTER. Duh I took a picture/many pictures


The eye is by Tottenham Court Road!
That night Alex and I went to Oxford street to spend money. He succeeded, I did not. Most of the souvenirs that I wanted were books, and, for some reason, the only bookstore we found was out of all of them. I did find a nifty Oslo pocket guide. Meanwhile, Alex bought new shoes and a flannel shirt.

When back in the hotel that night, I was flipping channels and stumbled upon a never-before-seen-by-me version of Emma by Jane Austen! Mr. Knightly was super attractive in this version. Alex asked a couple of times, "Why are we watching this?" So I had to explain the scandalous plot to him! How Mr. Frank Churchill has a double life, how Mr. Elton should be punched in the face, etc. etc. I am sure that Alex was riveted.