Do I get any points for that title? No?Day 6, we saw the famous Abbey Road zebra crossing, and let me tell you, that was an experience. Not wholly in a good way, and not wholly in a bad way, it was just – ugh, allow me to explain:

Abbey Road is just a road. I have no problem with that – they’re not going to close off an entire road and make it into a museum because some famous people 50 years ago took a photo there. But since it’s a road – like, a real functioning road, with cars and angry drivers with places to be – it makes it a real chore to cross it and take your silly touristy photo.

But Amanda and I were determined. We didn’t make it all the way out to London, I-don’t-even-know-how-many-miles across the ocean, to not get a picture to show our grandchildren. Plus, we’re both Beatles fans (I had a phase in middle school…), so we really wanted to see this famous spot.

Well, there were about 50 other tourists there at Abbey Road Studios that day with the same mindset, some of whom knew English traffic laws and some of whom didn’t. In England, it’s law that cars must stop if they see a pedestrian at a zebra crossing, so if you’re standing there waiting for traffic to clear so you can get a nice, car-free photo, you’ll be disappointed to see that the cars will all stop, lining up on the road if they have to, to let you walk.

So it’s rather awkward when a tourist just stands there as the traffic piles up at the crossing because the tourist wants the road to clear so they can get a good picture, and the traffic just wants the tourist to walk and get out of the way. Add into the mix, there are likely several other tourists all trying to cross the road at the same time as you, and you definitely don’t want them crossing the road with you and ruining your picture.
In short – it’s stressful, and, unless you’re a Beatles fan on a mission like Amanda and me, probably not worth your time.

I should also mention – before Abbey Road, we saw the Tower of London, something that Amanda was very interested in seeing. Personally, it wasn’t my favorite old building we saw (that honor would probably have to go to Westminster Abbey), but I’m glad we saw it anyway. It’s much bigger than I expected, and even though we were too cheap to pay the admission

to look inside, it was still cool to stand in such proximity to somewhere where so much history has taken place.

I also got noodles at this amazing place just off the Liverpool station that specialized in ramen. Shoryu Ramen, it was called – and it was really good. I’m a sucker for noodles, I guess it’s a part of being Asian, and this place was like a dream come true. The only Asian food we get in Kentucky is PF Chang’s and cheap takeout; these were real, high quality Japanese noodles. 

And that’s about it for the day, actually. We stopped by Baker Street just to say we had but found that the line for the Sherlock museum was too long to be bothered with, got tea again at the British Museum, and then stopped at a little art shop called jlkjfjlacmdls so I could buy a new sketchbook since I used up my old one on the flight over.

The nice (?) thing about that day was that we finally got to experience the infamous London rain. It’s been beautiful and sunny and even kind of hot these last few days here, but we hadn’t seen any of the cloudy skies and rain that London is known for. That finally changed as we were coming out of the British Museum. I don’t know, it’s not like I’ve never seen rain before, but something about being there in London, wearing a navy blue blazer, walking the street and actually knowing where I was going, and not really minding the rainfall, that made me feel like a real local.

It was cool.

That’s it for today! I’ll see you in the next one. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Chaps (thrifted)

Shirt: Target

Jeans: Abercrombie