Update: November 5th (My Birthday)

My major goal for the 5th was to visit Hyde park and see the Peter Pan statue. When I arrived, I was greeted by a nice lady in the visitor's center, and she gave me a not so accurate map of the park. I decided to do the entire loop, though it would mean that I would miss the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace (I didn't really miss them though).

Hyde Park, like most of the parks in London, used to be royal palace grounds, and the place is beautiful. Check out these square trees. I don't know why or how they did it, but they look just plain cool.



There is also a memorial to Prince Albert in the park. This memorial is huge and also quite lovely. You can sort of see me in the foreground of this picture. I have some closeups of the memorial, but they will have to wait until a real live slide show.


Mission successful! Here I am next to the Peter Pan statue. And it was just as much fun as I hoped it would be.


After visiting the statue, I headed towards the Temple Church in the city. They were closed for services when I arrived, so I walked around for a bit. And to my delight, I found a shop that sold Cornish Pasties! I got a steak pastie, and it was delicious.


Then I headed back to the church. For those of you who are fans of the Da Vinci Code, you may recognize this church.


On the way back to Paul's home, I stopped by the store to purchase some cheese and found Wensleydale Cheese! Another great surprise. It is nice and creamy and has cranberries in it.

That night, we headed to a local park to watch fireworks for Guy Faulk's Day. My favorite fireworks were these nifty ones that looked like snakes that shot in random directions in the night sky.


Then, to Brazas, a Brazilian restaurant for PehriPiri Chicken and later on, some wonderful Chocolate "Pudding."