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London Vacation 2006 Photo Album
Here are some pictures from the London 2006 vacation. This is the first vacation where we had a truly nice digital
camera, a Canon A620, and all pictures can be clicked for a bigger view (although still just 1024x768).
Cathy at Buckingham Palace. This was from the day we landed, Dec 28th, and it was already getting dark by the time
we arrived at the hotel. London and its northern location in winter meant the days were short and there were multiple
pictures taken in poor lighting late in the day.
Cathy at the Hard Rock Cafe London. This is the original Hard Rock. It is becoming a Novean tradition to
eat at the Hard Rock wherever we travel and then we buy Cathy a shot glass.
On the night of our second day, we saw "We Will Rock You" at the Dominion Theater. It was not a bad show but the
worst of all that we saw. We got discount tickets from LondonTheaterDirect.com and had great seats in the middle of
the dress circle. The best show that we saw was "Night of the Iguana" starring Woody Harrelson at the Lyric Theatre
on the night of the 30th. We got tickets from lastminute.com and had 2nd row seats (for 10 pounds!). That play
was "fantastic" (if you've seen it you get the joke).
On the coldest and rainiest of days (Dec 30th), we visited the Tower of London. We saw the Crown Jewels, White
Tower, Traitor's Gate, etc. And also got soaked and chilled.
From the exhibition at the Tower of London. If you are a king then you can have a ridiculously oversized
codpiece.
Mike at the Arms Displays at the Tower.
Cathy at the exit of the Tower and in front of Tower Bridge. We hiked accross the bridge and then hiked (I mean
hiked) up the south bank to the Globe and Tate Modern.
Cathy in front of the Globe Theater.
St. Paul's Cathedral at night from the south bank. It was still cold and rainy as we left the Tate Modern (modern
art, what a treat...) and headed over the millennium footbridge.
Big Ben as we trekked out of St. James park and towards Westminster Bridge.
Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey as seen from the London Eye.
Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament. And Mike.
Cathy in front of Westminster Abbey. The doors are closed because they had closed the Abbey for Evensong.
We went through the Abbey and then took the picture after we left (and the line was gone).
Cathy at Warwick Castle. And they said this had a low doorway; she fit under it just fine.
Mike at the mound at Warwick Castle. St Mary's church is in the background.
Cathy at the Shakespeare's Birthplace site.
While in Stratford we came across the Kaliko. We looked for Sundae while we were there but there were no Calicos.
Some Harry Potter steps in Oxford.
Stained glass windows in the dining hall at Christchurch College. There are little Alice in Wonderland scenes in
the bottom corners of the windows.
Cathy is here, but there is no sign of Harry Potter. The students were off for the holidays.
A boatload of glass from the Chihuly at the Kew exhibition.
Cathy in front of the Monkey Puzzle (it's a tree, not a real puzzle) at the Kew Gardens.
There was so much art glass at Kew. This is an arrangement in the Temperate House.
Chihuly and koi in the same pond.
Mike next to a macchia in the Temperate House. It was hard to believe that you can be inches away from a
piece costing tens of thousands of dollars. Just inches away! We may have even touched this one... maybe, it depends
who asks ;)
It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times...
It was Cathy at the Dickens House Museum.
Rosetta Stone at the British Museum. The French actually found the Rosetta Stone but had to give it to the British
as part of a peace settlement when they were getting their asses kicked (again).
Elgin Marbles at the British Museum.
Cathy in front of the Khorsabad sculptures from the palace of Sargon II. This is Sargon II from 720 BC and
not the computer chess game from the 1980's.
Mummified cats and kittens. I'm sure if Kim lived in the Egyptian era then all of her dead cats would end up like
this. Who knows, that one on the top right may be Trouble's great, great, great, great, (you get the idea) grandfather.
And then Cathy said, "We flew 5000 miles so you could get some wargame that you can't buy in the states?" And then
you could see the light bulb coming on over her head in figuring out why we took this vacation.
The last play that we saw was Willy Russell's "Blood Brothers". The rankings of the 4 shows that we saw would
be: Night of the Iguana, Twelfth Night, Blood Brothers, and We Will Rock You. This is kind of odd because it is
nearly the reverse order of the way we bought them (and figured we would enjoy them).
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