England 4: The rest of Tuesday in London in The England Chronicles - June 2013

...with less drama. We were saving up our energy for the drama to come! We continued to play tourist, and after touring Tower of London we went on to the Tower Bridge. Tower Bridge is right beside Tower of London. Apparently I am deeply in love with Tower Bridge, as I took something like fifty quadrillion pictures of it. Baker B suggested I might perhaps need to edit a bit, since nobody really needs that many pictures of Tower Bridge.

Nobody except ME. I totally need that many.

This time we did the Tower Bridge Exhibition, a London Pass thing that we didn't do last time although we intended to. The Tower Bridge Exhibition takes you up to the very top of the bridge, where there are amazing views. There are also a couple of interesting and short programs about its design and construction. Since I am in love with Tower Bridge- and with views- I enjoyed it immensely.

There are two walkways waaaaaaaaaay up high. We walked across on the one where you can look east towards Greenwich first.

And then we walked back on the other side, looking west-

I loved getting the close-up views of the bridge:

The walkways are very shiny:

After the bridge, we walked more on the South Bank. Going west this time.

There is all sorts of stuff on the South Bank. Like weird little fountains in the walkway:

We got to see my favorite bridge raised! We didn't see that last time, although apparently they raise it pretty often:

The South Bank is very pretty:

London Bridge isn't quite as stunning as Tower Bridge, but it's still very nice:

The Globe! We didn't do the tour this time. Just admired it from the outside.

Then we walked over Millennium Bridge towards St. Paul's.

And finally back to Stratford we went around 8:30 or so, stopping of course at our Wetherspoons for pints and relaxation and wireless on the way. We could actually have relaxed at our lodgings - there was a room we could use for TV if we wanted, plus our bedroom was quite cozy, and this time she had wireless too, but it was just way more fun to stop off at the pub. I also finally got to talk to Baker B, who had gotten the overnighted charger, and charged his phone. He was still fine, although he HATED the car. The car was making him really nervous, being so wide on the tiny roads - especially after the flat. The parking in Devizes was also really bad. He didn't have a dedicated parking spot, oddly, and had to park on the street which was difficult with the weirdly wide and hard to steer car. That night he had actually left it at the Barge Inn in Alton Barnes (a favorite hangout, which I have many many pictures of for way down the road when we get out to the country) and walked the canal back to Devizes. Like, seven miles. Baker B hiked around fifty million miles every day, so that wasn't as far as it probably sounds, but still. Not good to hate the car so much you end up abandoning it at the pub in the next town.

We decided we'd try and switch the car for a smaller one on Sunday. Kim and I could just take the tube to Hertz and he could meet us there, instead of us taking the train to Pewsey like we'd planned. Which was kind of disappointing, as I'd really been looking forward to a train ride (we rarely get those in the US) and we already had the tickets. They were cheap- ten pounds/fifteen dollars, but I hated to not use them. So I said I'd call Hertz and see if we could switch cars. Weirdly, I never could get in touch with them. I left several messages and they never did call back, and by the end of the week Baker B was pretty much resigned to the car, and we didn't switch. It added another (admittedly mild) level of phone drama, but oh, well! It was minor compared to the other assorted dramas.

Which I will continue... who knows when, but at least I'm doing better than last time. I think.