Day 3- A London Adventure!

Today I went into London!  My Aunt, 3 year old cousin, 12 year old cousin, his friend, and I all took the 30 minute train ride together into London this morning.  Together we all visited the National Gallery which is a phenomenal art museum.  There were thousands of paintings and many from many famous painters.  Some of their most famous paintings that I saw were "Virgin of the Rocks" by Leonardo da Vinci and "Sunflowers" by Vincent van Gogh.  It was really neat to have my Aunt show us around because she is a great artist and knows sooo much about art history. After that, my Aunt and cousins left to go back home and I stayed in the  city.

Me outside the National Gallery standing in Trafalgar square

After they left I bought a handy dandy map (it is said to say that because of technology this was the first time I had actually used a physical map) and made my way to the British Museum.  It too was amazing!  It was humongous and filled with all kinds of artifacts and things dated all the way from thousands of years Before Christ to present times.  The galleries I liked the most were the ones about the enlightenment, Greece (they even had pieces of the parthenon), and Egypt (they also had several mummies including Cleopatra).  

Greek vase from 3rd century BC that reminded me of the movie Hercules (and Lauren and Hayley)

Zeus!

Ptolemy I- 3rd Century BC

Nereid Monument- (real life sized temple tomb) 390-380 BC

Unknown Mummy

After the museum I walked by the Royal Opera House and then stopped to get some authentic fish and chips!

After eating my fish and chips I started the long walk down to Buckingham palace and passed the Canada Gate on the way.  It is too bad that it gets dark by 4:30 here because by the time I got to Buckingham palace to take pictures of the awesome fuzzy-hatted guards. 

(Canada Gate)

Buckingham Palace ( a little fuzzy I know)

After paying a visit to the Queen, I headed around towards the Parliament Building and Big Ben

Next I was on to Westminster Abbey!

At that point I headed back towards Trafalga Square to do some gift shopping, and then on to Chinatown in Soho.  After a very long day I finally headed back to the train station around 6:30

My adventure around London (not completely accurate to the routes I took)

It was a great day and beautiful city filled with interesting things! Here are some more pictures:

 (Trafalgar Square)