Picadilly Circus Adventure

To get to know the area, my friends and I have been trying out this tactic where we pick roughly a place we want to go, we wander around looking at pretty things (usually ending up in some random place across the city), and then we find the nearest tube station and take a train back to our flat. It's worked out well so far! There's no better way to familiarize yourself with the area than to get lost and find your way home, right? Right! Our second day here, we decided to head in the direction of Picadilly Circus, which is a famous street in London.

We made it there and looked at some beautiful buildings.

(sidenote: pretty much EVERY building here is beautiful)

After awhile we started to do our wandering thing, and we wandered into a park...

Wander, wander, wander...

Oh Whoa! That must have been GREEN PARK!

Because now we're at BUCKINGHAM PALACE!

There's a ROYAL GUARD!

And that's the ROYAL LEAFBLOWER???

All in all, a successful (albeit accidental) visit to Buckingham Palace. We discovered that this fall they're opening up the state rooms within the building for tours, so I'll definitely be hitting that up. It's not actually a guided tour, we just wander (which I like to do!), and I'm most excited that the tour includes access to the private gardens within the estate!

Oh, we also learned some helpful things today:

Street signs look like this. They're posted much higher up than I'm used to looking for street signs, at about the second story level on the exterior of most corner buildings. It is rare to see a street sign hung on a pole at the street like we have in the States.

Because there are so many one way streets, directions of which way to look for oncoming traffic are painted on the street for pedestrians. It is even more important for those walking to pay attention here because the driver and NOT the pedestrian has the right of way on the road. And let me tell you, drivers assert this right. They don't stop or slow down, they just honk at people in the street and hope they move.

Okay this one wasn't important I just thought it was funny... ;)