Monday, June 6, 2011

Ello London!

The first thing my brother asked me about London was "Do they talk funny there? And are you getting a British accent?" I'm sorry to disappoint anyone who might have the same first question, but no. They do not talk funny in London. Yes, they have an accent, but it sounds beautiful and I am convinced that it either makes a person sound smarter, or look hotter.... or both. As for picking up a British accent, I'm sorry to say that 2 weeks did not change how I speak. It did however change how I think. For a while, I thought in a British accent. Sadly, it's worn off now. And I do miss hearing a British accent everywhere I go. I prefer "Bloody Hell!" to "What the f***!" Everything in England is more polite, including the signs. You know how we have signs that say "Yield"? Well, in England they have signs that mean the same thing, but look like this....
Doesn't that seem more polite? People in London also prefer to say "Mind yourself" instead of "Watch it!", "Rubbish!" instead of "S***!" and they also like to say "Love" a lot.  Isn't that right, love? I guess the only exception would be when we drove by a sign that said....
It was 100% legit.

Now I'll tell you right now, this post isn't going to be 100% about what I did, or what I saw. That would take me years. I can sum it up really fast right now. Going to London was a typical touristy vacation, Hawaiian shirts and camera around neck not included, but on steroids. My friends and I saw basically every major attraction you can see in London. So, if you think of something, we probably saw it. You can look at my photos on facebook and read the captions under them to see the names of all the big things I saw, since I won't include all of those pictures here. There's not really much to say about the big things except, "Bloody hell! That's amazing!" *in a British accent. Everything was spectacular and beautiful and thats really all you can say. If thats all you wanted to know about my trip, then you can stop reading now. BUT, If you keep reading, I will be writing about all the cooler things that happened in London like; Street performers, Enormous knocks, Henry VIII- "It's so hard", a marriage proposal, Harry Potter, the drinking age, and then some random extras.

Street performers
You wouldn't believe the range of street performers London has. There's really cool ones like this guy....
He was awesome because while riding the unicycle and juggling the knives, he cut the apple and ate it. He was so much cooler than the lady who stood there dressed as Catwoman. Not kidding. Thats all she did. There were also street painters who were very good. And of course, who could forget the creepy statue guys. They would stand there dressed as a statue. Almost as bad as Catwoman.
The silver guy on the right was horrible because he would keep talking to everyone who would walk by. I'm pretty sure statues aren't supposed to talk. The gold guy on the left was pretty creepy too. You see those long arms? They were really his arms. No, totally kidding, but I bet you can guess what he did with those arms. He would reach out and touch anyone who wasn't paying attention to how creepy he was. He scared my friend, so I guess he did his job well.

Enormous knocks
If you've ever seen "Who's Line Is It Anyway", then you'd probably think was funny. It's like the British version of that show. In this particular video, the guys do a voice over of footage of the royal family. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjCU2VNQFNo Oh British humor!

Henry VIII- "It's so hard"
Do you see it? (It's about at his waist... hard to miss)
It's soooo hard! Hard not to look at it that is. Get your mind out of the gutter! I guess it was the style to show your stuff.

A marriage proposal
The guy in red said to my friend, Becca (the one on his left, holding his arm) "Would you meet me in the kitchen later? I would like to marry you!" A little bold don't you think?

Harry Potter
As you know, Harry Potter takes place in England so of course there were tons of Harry Potter things to see, and of course we saw them all:)

The millennium bridge is where they filmed this scene; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo-U5iOinM8

This is Diagon Alley... without all the decorations and special effects of course:)

Some of Harry Potter was filmed in London (above) and some was filmed in Oxford (below)
Recognize these steps? They were where little Harry first met little Malfoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adudScuvZVA

And just up the steps is the entrance to the Great Hall. It looks a lot smaller in this picture, but with some special effects and filming techniques, voila! You've got Harry Potter Great Hall!

The drinking age... is 18!
No, we didn't go crazy, but we did try different things London had to offer. We tried "Shanys" (Lemonade and beer), "Strongbow" (Cider and beer), wine, a French wine mixed drink, and Gin, Tequila, and Vodka (which are all disgusting). My favorite was Strongbow.
The "Bueno" bars below are the best candy in the world. It's like candy Nutella! SOOOO GOOD!

Other Random Stuff
In this section I'll include a picture of London as a reward for reading this far down my blog post.

So that doesn't even come close to summing up all the cool stuff we did in England because if I did that, you'd be here 'till 2012. If you have any other burning questions to ask me besides, "Do people really drive on the other side of the road there?" (to which the answer is yes) then ask me the next time you see me! Until then, goodbye Love!