Well, obviously, I'm a bit behind in the blogging, but with good excuse. It was a busy and anxious few days leading up to Ira's arrival and the reality of having a week off from classes sunk in, making class all the more intolerable. We spent a wonderful full week sharing London and then tunneled under the English channel for a few days in Paris before he headed back home and I was on my own all too soon again. We covered a lot of ground and came each night properly knackered from all our sight-seeing. It was so nice to have someone to share this with, get me back on the tourist trip, and, of course, have the wonderful company of my main squeeze! As such, the following installments will contain a bunch of pictures puncuated by quick summations of where we went and what we did. It's all about the pics, anyway!

I got up at the crack of dawn, before dawn actually, to make my way to Heathrow to meet Ira. His flight arrived at 6:20am and he made it through customs, tired, but in one piece about five minutes after I got there. We lugged his bike box and bags back on the tube. Despite it being rush hour, the trip wasn’t too bad, thanks to Shane’s smart suggestion of a slight go-around route. Ira took a nap while I attended my last class of the week. Not much rest for the weary, though, as we set out to gain his first glimpse of London in the afternoon. We walked down to and all around the Tower of London and across Tower Bridge, meandering along the river front as well and stopping often for Ira to take various pictures. We hopped on the tube back to Liverpool Street station, walked up Brick Lane and had dinner at the Turkish shish kabob place on Bethnal Green Road, which did not disappoint.

--- I & J, tourist style, at Tower Bridge ---

--- Tower of London by day ---

After a proper start to Ira’s stay in the East End by way of a set breakfast at Pelicci’s, we caught the No. 8 bus downtown. We hopped off near SoHo and had a stroll through the Seven Dials area on our way to the National Gallery. The National Gallery is arranged by time period, so we made our way through the whole museum chronologically. Having had enough of Jesus paintings, I snuck down to the café for a cup of tea and a snack before resuming the tour with the impressive impressionists wing. (I should have just begun my visit a couple centuries later, honestly). After a thorough tour of the museum, we wandered around Trafalgar Square and down Whitehall Street, where our hunger could no longer wait and tucked into a pub along the way. Ira got his bangers and mash and we enjoyed trying some local beers (Speckled Hen and London Pride, I believe). We then walked all around Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and across Westminster Bridge and turned down river to stroll along the South Bank enjoying the lights of the city. Crossing the Thames at Milennium bridge, we caught a bus at St. Paul’s back to the East End and had a late night snack at a new Syrian café on Brick Lane.

--- National Gallery ---

--- Trafalgar Square ---

--- Houses of Parliament by night from the south bank---

--- St. Paul's looms above as we wait for the bus home ---