Eye Love London

Tonight I ventured down to the South Bank, yet again, to meet up with some NYULondeners for a trip around the London Eye - also known as the big giant ferris wheel beside the Thames.  The London Eye is 443 feet tall and is the tallest ferris wheel in Europe.  Instead of typical ferris wheel carts, one travels around the wheel in egg-shaped glass observatories, which have lots of space to move around and view London from all sides.  They fit about 15-20 people.  It takes thirty minutes to get all the way around because it travels at a snail's pace, allowing for plenty of time to take photos - of which I took full advantage.  We went right at sunset, which was gorgeous to watch as the sky faded and lights started turning on all over the city.  If you ever come to London, this is certainly something you have to do.  According to Wikipedia, it is the highest paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom - and I can see why.

See for yourself...

Waiting in line, looking up

Inside our observatory

Like I said, sunset is a pretty great time to go

And it turns blue...

The city lighting up

Gotta love that flag

At the top!  Quite possibly one of my favorite photos

I will never get tired of seeing that.  It's truly breathtaking.

After a wonderful experience of seeing London from the air, I rode a Boris Bike home, which provided a whole other way of seeing London.

Boris Bikes, if you haven't heard of them, is a bike-hire scheme that was spearheaded by mayor Boris Johnson (hence the name) in 2010 and is now spread all over the city.  You can rent a bike at one location, pedal it to another, and then drop it off.  I did this tonight for only one pound.  It was a gorgeous night and wonderful exercise - both physically and mentally.  I met this guy named Eric (who also attends NYUL) on our trip around the Eye, and he said he would be riding a bike back to Guilford (our dorm) as he had ridden one there.  He asked if I wanted to join him and I said...YES! (Refer to my previous blog posting about freedom.)

It was so much fun, but it was also very scary for a couple reasons.  One, it was night time.  Two, I didn't really know where I was going, but I was following Eric, who seemed to know - for the most part.  And three, THEY DRIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD!  I've also never driven a bike in a city before, but there's a first time for everything, right?  I came close to a few side view mirrors, a handful of pedestrians, and a couple buses, but we made it home alright and in one piece (or two pieces as it were, one piece each).  It was actually quite exhilarating!  And the drivers were rather considerate of us.  They would let us in front of them if we had to swerve around a parked car or something of the sort.  I was quite surprised.  In NYC they wouldn't think twice about honking and almost mowing you over.  But this is no NYC.  This is London.  Set up with very similar city conventions, but rather different at their cores.

I love New York City.

But...

Eye love London.

Cheers!