Wandering London Bridge

This morning I went into the town of Wimbledon to use the internet and had an intersting shopping experience. At work you are not allowed to wear a watch for infection control purposes so you have to get one that pins on your shirt. The girls at work said I could get one at a store called Argos. I went there today and this is how it works. There are all these catalogs and you pick your item out of the book and write down the number and then go to a little kiosk and put the number in and pay. Then you go to this other desk where it comes out on a conveyor belt from giant vending machine or something in the back....weird!

I came into town after that to pick up my uniform for work tomorrow....it's a dress! Haha! That should be intersting. My hospital is right by London Bridge. This photo is taken from London Bridge which is commonly mistaken for Tower Bridge, the one in this picture. In 1968, an American, Robert P McCulloch paid $2.5 million dollars to buy London Bridge under the mistaken belief that he was buying Tower Bridge. The then London Bridge was taken down, transported to America and reconstructed at Lake Havasu City in Arizona. Hence why "London Bridge" became so popular. I didn't even take a picutre of it. It looks like an overpass over the river.

This is "The Monument" which commemorates a 1666 (not sure if those numbers are just a coincidence) fire that burned for three days in London. I is the tallest stone free standing stone column in the world.

From here I checked out this little tiny church St. Magnus. They were having a book sale so I left with a new book and another unexpected addition, a homeless Polish woman. She followed me out and said she was having a really bad day and needed to talk to someone. So I told her she could walk with me. We walked by the river and she wanted to sit down and talk....hmmmm....so we stopped and she told me her sob story. I told her I had to go after about 20 minutes and she said she would just walk with me at which point she asked me to buy her lunch. So about an hour and four pounds later we parted ways. It was interesting to pass an hour with her and remember that she too is a child of God. His heart must break all the time.

The tower of London is right on the river....I didn't go in, I am saving it for when Jason comes!

Then I walked over to St. Katherines docks, which are all these little dock areas just off the river with a mix of new boats and a few old sailing ships.

Then I wandered down Shad Thames which is an old port. These are all old warehouses and those walkways used to used to move cargo from the riverside into storage. Now there are small shops and restaurants along the street.

City Hall....very unusual spacy building.

Tower Bridge at dusk.

This is the walkway along the river. Really dreamy on a fall evening (well about 4:30). Come on prince charming!!! You were supposed to be here! Hehe

The HMS Belfast, Europes only surviving WWII big gun ship.

And this is where I find myself now. At a Starbucks in the open air Hay's Galleria. This statue in the middle I really liked, it reminds me of something you would see in a little boys dreams. I spent a little too much time on facebook this morning remembering all of my wonderful friends and family back home, so I was a little homesick, but had a good day in the end.