I flew over to the UK to meet Graham and meet his fabulous girlfriend, who, surprisingly, I did not take a photo of. Weird! (I had a really dark one, but I accidentally deleted it.) Anyways,
on with the pictures!
This is a fuzzy picture of Graham, one of my best friends. He's Mr. Man. =) I was really happy to have him along. Isn't he sharply dressed in a Canadiana sort of way? =D
The first place we visited was the LSE, right besides Druery Lane (You know, from the Muffin Man.) and Graham and I both agreed that the lack of a kitchsy tourist muffin shop on the street was a crying shame. The study hall pictured above was one of my favs. It was all nice and wooden. The other lecture halls Graham and I only peeked through the windows...they were all locked otherwise I would have taken a picture of the austere British plastic chairs and lecture halls. ;)
After stopping at a Pret a Manger (Which I loved even before Graham lived in England, and Graham detests) for a sandwich, we went to the River Thames. I enjoyed looking at all the boats.
I also enjoyed impersonating the statues here.
We then went to Buckingham palace. My favourite part of the changing of the guard was not the large marching band. No, it was the London police, who casually ran over people with their pure-bred white horsies. Cute, yet lethal. And maybe a bit rude. =D
We then proceed to go shopping, and you can see how amazing I look in shiny pants. I would have bought them, but they were just a little too tight at a 32 waist. Shame. Sigh. But I did buy several nice sweaters, and I got some amazing socks there and I wish I had bought another set. Primark is a very nice store to visit when in London. (Where I got my socks and sweaters.)
There were many other photos I took, but thanks to Blogger, I am going to cut it a bit short. We spent the evening eating fish and chips, and Graham's girlfriend bought me some candy (And she endeared herself to me at that very moment) and we just spent a nice time wandering London at night. I also got to see a friend of mine in the evening that I did my MA with, and it was fantastic. Graham and I then proceeded to leave at 5AM to take a train to a plane to Pisa.
Surprisingly, Pisa was a student town, which I didn't think it would be. It was very pretty, and a little student-y, but still somewhat bland at the same time. You'll notice Graham carrying two bags. Unfortunately, we had three bags with us, and we switched between carrying bags the entire trip. Graham was a true friend and would not let me carry the bags more than him. Thanks Graham, you are the best! And also, I totally saw a difference in your muscle mass from day 1 to day 10! You were buff by the end!
This is a very typical example of Pisan and Italian architecture en generale. It's very pretty, in a very I-need-to-be-washed-every-day-brick sort of way. I really liked looking at it. Italian architecture is very subtle, not as grandeur or gothic as countries to the North. The more you look at it the more you like it.
This is Graham pretending to be upset. However, we both were a little miffed because it rained on us the entire day we were in Pisa. LOL. Anyways, I don't have too many happy pictures of Graham because for some reason every time I pointed a camera at him, he scowled a wee bit.
And this is the only reason we came to Pisa. As you can see the tower, she is-a-leaning. Both Graham and I said, "Wow, a little underwhelmed." I thought it would be bigger, and lean, like 45 degrees, or at least enough so that you could ramp a dirtbike off it. Well, never have expectations, they say. The rain finished just as we went into the Piazza de Tower of Pisa, so it was very beautiful, and the water shined off the marble, and made for a very pleasant late afternoon. =) We then hopped the train after touring around a bit, and left for Rome.
OK, that's all for the moment. More pictures of the upcoming cities and friends soon.
Until next post, ciao amici!
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