We purchased Day Travelcards at the Visitors Center. With these one-day tickets, we can get on-off the bus, subway, or local train as often as we wish. This is a lot less than the tours they sell in the city. After a 25 minute subway ride, we came out of the tube at Oxford Street and bustled through the crowds by world-renowned stories until we arrived at Trafalgar Square and took pictures of Icarus.
On The Mall, we gazed at the enormity of the buildings and monuments; prior to skyscrapers they built monstrous stone edifices. We strolled through St. James Park stopping to watch the ducks and admire 
the gardens. There are many parks in London, and this one was filled with people, even though it was a weekday. Some were in bathing suits others in work clothes. Kids romped in the grass while older people on canes slowly inched along on shaded paths or sat feeding the pigeons. People gregariously chatted or listened to iPODs while texting. I heard various languages and saw people dressed in native clothing or fads such as grunge and heavy metal. There was even a model doing a photo-shoot.
We were too late to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Place and too early for the queen to offer us tea–I will need to return later tomorrow to sip the brew and enjoy the crumpets.
It is an honor to guard the queen, but it must be difficult to stand so still in the hot-looking uniforms at 90 F.
In Hyde Park we sat on the ground in the shade of a chestnut tree to eat hot dogs. I don’t usually like tube steaks, but this one was delicious. At the Speakers Corner, I was so disappointed to learn that the speakers are there only on Sundays that I had to console myself with a scoop of double chocolate ice cream. Yum!
We saw Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, but I had no interest in exploring either.
The highlight of the day for us was the Jack the Ripper walking tour. Andre, the guide is an historian who has been studying Jack the Ripper for 25 years. He led us to the sites of the murders and described the incidents and police findings and gave us his own conclusion about the identity of this serial killer. I now want to see the Johnny Depp movie From Hell and Dennis wants to read Jack the Ripper:The Final Solution by Stephen Knight. Have you seen the movie or read the book?
