On Holiday: Oxford and London

Alright, time to catch up on the blog! Life has been incredibly busy lately, but I wanted to share some adventures and pictures from this summer- there's a lot of catching up to do!

Andrea (my former roommate and best friend from college) came over to Oxford to visit on August 4th. We hung around Oxford for a few days seeing the colleges, exploring the University, and planning our visits to Switzerland and Ireland. We managed to get everything packed and organized by 3:30am the morning before we left for London... that left a full four hours to sleep before catching the bus! We set off for a two week trip with our camping and climbing gear and two changes of clothes. A park in Oxford

Andrea and I in Magdalen College

We spent the 8th walking about 20 miles around London. We covered Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, London Tower and London Bridge and quite a bit more in between! London Castle

London Bridge, letting a boat through.

Houses of Parliament and the River Thames

Big Ben

The side of Westminster Abbey

Buckingham Palace (above), and Andrea and I in front of the gates (below)

We even stopped for the obligatory fish and chips. Andrea had never taken a 'metro' of sorts, so at the end of the day we happily decided that she needed to experience London's underground tube. We stayed in a hostel in central London (Andrea's first hostel experience), which remained noisy until 2 or 3am. After another night of little sleep, we set off for Basel, Switzerland!

Hyde Park