London 2013

I can't do much in terms of layout on this Blogger app so I will just post and caption some pictures.

This is a great pub we hit yesterday. Most all the pubs have beautiful window boxes, planters, and hanging baskets.  This one also had great beers. 

This is Clay in the pub pictured above.

London has amazing, interesting architecture.  This one is called "the Shard."  It looks like long slivers of broken glass.

One of our London Walks (guided history walking tours) was in Bermondsey.  It was originally an area of docks, shipping, and manufacturing.  It is now high priced housing.

This was also from the Bermondsey walk.  The guide said it is the best view of 

Tower Bridge and she was right.  We walked across the bridge. 

This is Tower Hill where our walk began. That's the Tower of London in the background. We did that tour on a prior trip. 

National Theatre lit up at night taken when crossing Waterloo Bridge after seeing Much Ado About Nothing at the Old Vic Theatre one evening. 

This is the aforementioned Old Vic Theatre where we saw Much Ado About Nothing.  In spite of being written by Shakespeare and starring James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave, the show sucked.  It is still in previews and they would be well advised to pull the plug and shut it down before it officially opens. All the other shows we've seen have been very good. 

A dog in a pub.  Dogs in pubs are two of the best things about this country. 

This is one of my favorite sculptures in London.  It is located in a very busy, commercial area where a hay market had been many years ago. 

One of our best exports. 

Our first day in London we went to the British Museum and saw an exhibit about Pompeii and Herculaneum.   Among the excavated ruins they found a mosaic floor picturing a guard dog. Near that same home they found such a dog.  The disaster preserved the best known evidence of daily life in Roman cities and that was the focus of the exhibit. 

Today is Friday and it is our last full day in London.  We are doing another walk this afternoon and another play this evening. We've been hitting 3-4 pubs each day doing lots of beer making "research." Tomorrow we take a train to Brighton where we will rent a car and begin our adventure touring the countryside. 

Everything seems to be going well back at home.  Maya has gotten out but still comes back home.  It sounds like everything is normal there.