A Stroll through Hyde Park

Why did the students walk across Hyde Park?

 To get to the Primark on the other side.

Well, technically it was through Kensington Gardens, but Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens are all kind of one big park area. Primark is a clothing/home goods store that has pretty good stuff for pretty cheap--you can get shirts for 3 pounds each. I didn't need to get anything, but I went along for the experience, and it was an excuse to take a stroll through the park.

Queen's Gate from inside Hyde Park

Royal Albert Hall

This is across the street from Hyde Park, and it's where lots of big concerts and events are held.

The Albert Memorial

This 180-foot tall memorial was put up by Queen Victoria after her husband Albert's death at the age of 42. Semi ostentatious. But hey, when you're Queen Victoria, you can pretty much do what you want. These Brits love their monuments. There's one every 500 feet, it seems. But that's one of the things I love about London--there's history everywhere.

A bridge spanning the Serpentine. Rather picturesque, don't you think?

The Peter Pan statue. Left to right: Me, Kenzie, Jasmine, and Becca.

There are lots of pigeons running around, and it's illegal to feed them. They're like squirrels in the United States. There are squirrels here too, but I haven't seen them in as great of numbers as the pigeons.

Keeping off the rain in style. That rain jacket was an excellent investment, let me tell you, and I love my polka-dot umbrella.

The Italian Gardens

After making it through the park and wandering around for a bit, we finally ended up at Primark. No pictures yet, but just imagine the busiest store you've ever been in, and that would probably be about right. It was insane in there. Maybe I'll take a nice walk through the park early one morning and get to the store before it gets so crazy. Of course, you know how mornings and I get along... We'll see what happens with that.