London: Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square is a huge tourist-y spot in London. It has a huge fountain and several statues, and then the National Gallery/National Portrait Gallery. It also has "living statues" that are quite cheeky for people acting like statues for a living. Um. I kind of want to do that for life. From the top of the steps at Trafalgar, you can see Big Ben! Which is convenient, as that's rather something you want to see.






Yep. That's Big Ben.





SILLY SIGN EXTRA. There is actually a fine for feeding pigeons in the square. Additionally, I bet this sort of signage would be much more useful if instead of four hundred other HUMAN languages, it was translated into pigeon, too. After all, who would beg for food around a sign telling people they'll have a fine for giving it?

Yeah, you're not supposed to take a picture of oil portraits. I forgot this at the National Portrait Gallery. Of all the portraits I could have made this mistake on, why did I take a picture of THIS one?!??!

This statue of General Charles Napier was erected mainly due to funds from privates who fought under him. How lovely is that?

Mareike in Trafalgar square!

Can you spot me?

How about now? There's actually a very good reason why I don't take closeups. See if you can spot it (Hint: It's my face.).

The National Gallery

What Greco-roman demi-gods did instead of water-skiing.

Kate always says how it's a tough job market for medievalists. Obviously, it's worse for medieval knights.

The view from the top of Trafalgar square.

King George IV with a pigeon on his head. He looks pretty trim here, but he was actually obese because of his addiction to alcohol and extravagant lifestyle. His wife, Catherine, was similarly obese and lead a similarly extravagant lifestyle that resulted in her being removed from the queenship. Note: when a female monarch, don't go out on the town too much. George had always disliked Catherine, because she wasn't really a looker by most standards. This was probably fair--he was so good-looking, after all, that the public heckled him for his obesity the few times he appeared in public.

By the end of his life, it was suspected that he might be suffering from the same variety of insanity--porphyria--as his father did (minus the incontinence, so he could hardly complain). For example, he claimed on his death bed that he had been at the Battle of Waterloo. Many historians, however, think he might just have been trying to annoy the Duke of Wellington (seriously). And if you think about it, if you're going to kick the bucket anyways, you might as well offend a Peer of the Realm whilst doing it.

This is a large lion.

Across from Trafalgar Square...