{"id":381,"date":"2012-06-25T08:24:36","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T13:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/?p=381"},"modified":"2012-07-09T19:41:48","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T00:41:48","slug":"riding-the-bus-and-the-wallace-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/?p=381","title":{"rendered":"Riding the Bus and the Wallace Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, June 21st<\/sup><\/p>\n

Today it POURED.\u00a0 Seriously.\u00a0 I saw an underground sign the other day that was like, \u201c40 days and 40 nights of rain, and the Bible called it a flood.\u00a0 The British call it summer!\u201d\u00a0 So true…\u00a0 Anyway, today we decided to take the bus tour of London.\u00a0 We figured it would get us around to any place we hadn\u2019t seen yet, and let us take a bit of a break from walking for miles.\u00a0 Getting on was quite easy, because there\u2019s a stop right outside our local Underground (Gloucester Road, btw).\u00a0 The bus\u2019 upper deck is mostly open, but there is a front section that is under a cover, so we sat up there.\u00a0 Lucky that we did, because pretty much as soon as the we got going, it started to rain.\u00a0 We rode it for a short way to Baker Street, and then jumped off to go to the Wallace Collection.<\/p>\n

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Yes, that Baker Street. Did you really think we wouldn’t stop by?<\/p><\/div>\n

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Come, Watson! The game is afoot!<\/p><\/div>\n

On our very first day in London, Kevin went rushing off the the Wallace Collection for a seminar thing about (you guessed it) swords, but he hadn\u2019t had time to see everything he wanted to see, so we stopped by.\u00a0 It\u2019s an interesting place.\u00a0 In the front, there are a few rooms decorated and so on with antiquities, but what Kevin was really interested in was their collection of arms and armor, including a whole thing of rapiers.\u00a0 I have to admit, some of that stuff is gorgeous, and regardless of whether the aesthetics have stood the test of time, you have to admire the skill that went into making some of these things.\u00a0\u00a0 Even just putting together a functional suit of armor in that day and age, let alone one that is decorated is just impressive.\u00a0 And wearing them!\u00a0 They weigh 50,000 pounds!\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine how a person could move around in that, let alone a horse wearing it\u2019s own armor, and carrying a battle tank on its back.\u00a0 Makes the whole jousting thing just that much more impressive.<\/p>\n

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Armor! Rar!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Hee!<\/p><\/div>\n

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This was a suit of clothes made to go with a sword as part of parade dress. Both the outfit and the sword are very very pretty, but personally, I don’t think they go THAT well. I wonder if the color of the fabric has faded…<\/p><\/div>\n

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This sword! (their picture, mine was not good…)<\/p><\/div>\n

After a short break at the Wallace Collection, we walked down Union Street to meet up with the bus again.\u00a0 Nowhere in London has reminded me so much of somewhere else.\u00a0 There have been a few time where I was like, oh, that looks like so and so, but Union Street could have been ripped straight out of New York City, save the very large Union Jacks strung up all over.\u00a0 The same stores, the same look, everything.\u00a0 Kind of weird, really.\u00a0 We met up with the bus again, and got ourselves up on top again, under the awning, because it was still intermittently raining on us like crazy.\u00a0 We also had a live guide, and we decided to ride the bus around the whole loop, and see where we ended up.\u00a0 After a couple of stops, we were able to move to the very front!<\/p>\n

We went over Tower Bridge, and by the houses of Parliament and Westminster, and through the newer areas of town to see the Gherkin and the Shard (buildings).\u00a0 The guide was entertaining, and had a lot of fun local history to share about a lot of the stuff we passed on the way, so even though we spent a fair bit of time in traffic, it was still useful.\u00a0 I have to say, I was kind of impressed with how much ground Kevin and I had actually managed to cover.\u00a0 By the time we took the tour, we\u2019d been inside a lot of the places pointed out, especially the historical buildings.\u00a0 A lovely way to get out on a rainy day.<\/p>\n

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On the Bus!<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, June 21st Today it POURED.\u00a0 Seriously.\u00a0 I saw an underground sign the other day that was like, \u201c40 days and 40 nights of rain, and the Bible called it a flood.\u00a0 The British call it summer!\u201d\u00a0 So true…\u00a0 Anyway, today we decided to take the bus tour of London.\u00a0 We figured it would get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407,"href":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions\/407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kevinandsarah.theladyadventurer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}