Tim and I got distracted by the shiny thing way down at the end of this path. It turned out to be the Albert Memorial. 2001.06.01-01

On each corner of the Albert Memorial is a huge statue featuring four figures and a beast of burden representative of the four major continents (Africa, America, Europe, and Asia). This camel is actually a fountain that spits on you just like a real camel. The America statue (to the right of this one) includes a shirtless, gun-toting cowboy and a buffalo. Ah, irony. Even though we couldn't get close enough, we're pretty sure the big golden Albert statue also spits on you. 2001.06.01-02

The Royal College of Art's model shop (one of them, anyway). I suspect I am the first tourist to ever take a picture of it. To the right was a spiff foam-working room. 2001.06.01-03

Somebody's really well-maintained Triumph TR-4, from the back. (Who cares? My dad used to drive a TR-3 which looks similar to this, but cooler. Mostly, this was just a nice old car.) 2001.06.01-04

The interior of somebody's really well-maintained Triumph TR-4. 2001.06.01-05

Somebody's really well-maintained Triumph TR-4, from the front. (Yes, three pictures of the same car. It was our first day in London, and we were easily distracted by rare European automobiles! Shut up.) 2001.06.01-06

This building made me want to put new tires on my car, and it puts our Michelin tire stores to shame. Plus, inside, you can buy those cute babies from the ads. 2001.06.01-07

This is some weird paradoxical thing that left me dizzy for several minutes: Why would anyone bother to chain their bike up to this fence? (Think about it.) 2001.06.01-08

London is full of puzzling and amazing sights. This is the facade of a fashion boutique on Brompton Road. The wicked cool thing is that when you look directly through the windows, they're all blurry and you can't see in. But from an angle, the glass is perfectly clear. Magic! 2001.06.01-09

We found this TVR sports car which solved our mystery of what car appears in the movie Swordfish, but then it presented another one: What does the knob behind the stick shift do? All we could figure out was that you can turn it clockwise and anticlockwise. (It's not for controlling the convertible top either.) Weird. 2001.06.01-10

I think those are boats out there on the water of The Serpentine lake in Hyde Park. Maybe they're pelicans. Or Germans. Maybe this was in Detroit. I can't remember. 2001.06.01-11

So, Tim and I stop near The Serpentine lake in Hyde Park and, like, out of the freaking blue comes this horde of wacky rollerbladers. One of them (sorta visible behind the guy in white in the center) was riding a rolling speaker system, which boomed for hundreds of feet after it passed us. Later, they all stopped for a cup of tea and made wry comments. 2001.06.01-12

While this might look like a handy recepticle for dog droppings, it's really a container for Hyde Park visitors to dispose of their used dogs. Just drop 'em through the slot and later a park official empties the container into his truck. Honest! 2001.06.01-13

The bathroom floor in our hotel, despite looking like wood, was actually Linoleum. And it was squishy. 2001.06.01-14

15 pictures >>>

day 2...