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London should need no introduction. Everyone knows where it is, everyone knows the weather is shit, and everyone knows it's massive. I came here (without Mo) for a week to assess it in comparison to Edinburgh to help me decide where I should set up camp for my next few years in the UK. London is huge with heaps to see so I had a busy week planned. As well as seeing and doing the touristy stuff, I wanted to get out of the city too and see what life in London is like further afield.

It was very sunny and very warm when we departed Athens. Four hours later I was on the approach to Heathrow airport, and this was the view out of my window.		Two minutes later it was this. Great.
The following morning was really sunny, but don't let that fool you - most mornings were.		Come afternoon however, it was pouring rain and the roads were flooded!
		The Eye takes around 20 minutes to do a revolution and gives great panoramic views of the city. Obviously it's more desirable to go up on a fine day, so I headed straight here on one of those sunny mornings but these were the conditions when I arrived. Typical.
The London Eye.
The view looking north.
West.
South.
I did a bus tour around the city which is a great way to cover most of the major sights. This is the approach to Tower Bridge (often confused for London Bridge which is the next bridge upstream).		The Tower of London. Since it was founded in 1078, the Tower has been used as a fortress, a royal palace, a prison, a place of execution and torture, an armoury, a treasury, a zoo, a mint, a public records office, and an observatory. Phew!
St. Paul's Cathedral. This dates from the 17th century and is apparently London's fourth St Paul's Cathedral. St. Paul must have really like cathedrals. I didn't go in but apparently there's a Whispering Gallery in here, so called because if you talk close to the wall it carries your words around to the opposite side, 32 metres away!		The bus tour included a free cruise up the River Thames. This looks like a difficult job.
Tower Bridge, and the HMS Belfast on the right. This big guy served during World War II and was in service until 1965. It is now a museum moored on the Thames.		This one is London Bridge. Pretty ordinary-looking isn't she.

And this is the London Underground (aka the Tube) during rush hour hahaha. Despite the crap it gets, the Tube does make London very accessible. Click here for an example of such crap; it's a song criticising the Tube strike that was happening at the time because the workers wanted more pay. There are about ten separate lines, and at least one or two of them seem to experience signal failures and other such delays on a daily basis. But, be that as it may, it can't be denied that Londoners would have a tough time without it.		Covent Garden - a district in central London full of expensive restaurants, shopping, and entertainment. Many London-based celebrities are spotted around here.		Hahaha, well you gotta park it somewhere I suppose!

Leicester Square, "cinema and entertainment centre" - one of the busiest spots in London by night.		Piccadilly Circus - a famous London landmark with its electric advertising displays (supposedly the first of their kind in the world).

Some of the neighbourhoods a little further out of the city centre are really nice. I don't know what they're like even further out but these left a good impression on me.		Wimbledon, home of the Wimbledon Tennis Open (obviously). I couldn't really get pictures of much due to construction work going on (and security watching me). This is the exterior of Court 1.
I went for a walk around Notting Hill in the evening. It's a nice area but the traffic congestion on the main roads was starting to remind me of Naples hehe.
Lamborghinis - Nice! One day maybe ;)		Hahaha, just like the Tube trains that crap out and cause huge delays.

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