We only have four days left in London.  After being in the UK for over a month, we are ready for something radically different.  Not that the medieval architecture isn't amazing, but after a while all of the Gothic arches, barrel vaults and flying buttresses tend to blend together.  We've been staying in the western-most neighborhood of London, Uxbridge.  The "tube," or subway system has six zones.  Zone number one is basically the center of London, and we are in zone six, which is a 30 to 45-minute train ride into the city's center. 

This pic was taken when we got off the Piccadilly line.  We were headed to the United Grand Lodge of England, and Piccadilly Circus-ish area.  The tube is so far underground that we had to take two of these extremely long escalators to the street level.  Kale thought it would be funny to take the picture straight-on so it would look like everyone was leaning backward.  He was right.  It is funny:)

Here's street-level.  We were now about one block from the lodge:

Here we are at the Grand Lodge, this is the world home of Freemason's, established in 1717. The lodge was amazing.  Everything was marble, and the building was huge.  We got there too late for a tour, but the doorman gave us guest passes and said that we could get into the library, the museum, and the study area. We also looked around the lodge shop for a while and wanted to buy a few things, but knew we couldn't take anything with us. We climbed five or six flights of stairs and stopped on every floor to admire the details that give to every aspect of this building.  The ceilings were incredible!

Below: Looking down from top floor stair.

Kale with a painting of George Washington, he too was a Mason and had a little something to do with the founding the of the US and A :)

This is the front of the lodge.  I had to cross the street, and even go into a store front to get the entire building, and I don't even think I got the tippy-top.  It was such a massive structure.  If you look closely, you can see Kale in the doorway.  He looks like an ant next to the building:)

By the time we were ready to move on from the lodge, it was pouring rain.  We only had one umbrella between us, so we huddled together and walked slowly.  Chinatown was a short walk so that was where we decided to go.  We figured we would find and place there to sit and have some tea.  The pics below were taken in Chinatown...

Once the rain started to clear up a bit we decided to head for some other sites we've neglected to visit since our arrival.

National Gallery, which like all of London's museums has free admission.

National monument:

Oh - and there's Big Ben...parliament...

This was right across the street from Big Ben/parliament.  It was a fenced-in grassy area about the size of an acre, and there were a bunch of flags from other countries surrounding the fenced in area.  Right outside the fence, close to the street there were a bunch of tents set up.  There were maybe 30 tents lining one side of the fence.  I think the protesters were in the tents, and you can see their signs below...

More photos of Big Ben/parliament, and just past BB/P there's a bridge we took a pic from...so you can see how massive it is...

And then we moseyed on over to Westminster Abby...

And Cleopatra's Needle... which was quarried around 1500BC, later around 5BC the hieroglyphs were added. This needle originally stood Heliopolis, then later moved to Alexandria Egypt. It is 68ft high, weighing in at 224 tons (448,000 lbs), made from solid red granite. It was presented as a gift from the ruler of Egypt, Mohammed Ali, in 1819 in appreciation for battles won in support of Egypt. It wasn't moved to London until 1877, via boat. This obelisk has a sister, it rests in NYC's Central park. There is a third, which is in Paris but is somewhat different from the NY and London obelisk's.

Recent news regarding the New York Obelisk. In 2010, Dr. Zahi Hawass, sent a letter to the president of the Central Park Conservancy and the Mayor of New York City insisting on improved conservation efforts. If they are not able to properly care for the obelisk, he has threatened to "take the necessary steps to bring this precious artifact home and save it from ruin.

London Obelisk below:

         

And then we called it a day, went to a pub, had a Guinness and some wine, and headed home:)