I'm a work of art. And also a tourist.

"The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist." - Russell Baker

(Disclaimer: Blogger is a very annoying application to try and put pictures into, so I apologize for the weird order in which they are placed on the page...I tried everything!)

It's a very confusing feeling, moving somewhere and then going to do tourist things. You wonder if you're still a tourist...or if there's another name for it? I live here in this city now, but here I am walking around with my camera amidst the throng of people who don't live here but also have cameras.

Anyway, my new friend Erin and I (HEY GIRL!) went on a tourist day to see a few sites and it was really fun. Erin is especially good company and I owe my friend Sarah B. some British treats or something for introducing us. Or maybe a postcard because I'm a poor graduate student.

So Erin and I walked the Waterloo Bridge, where I took some photos of Parliament and the Thames River (remember, it's pronounced like "temmz") and the London Eye (the giant ferris wheel that I still haven't been on, much to my disappointment).





At the end of the bridge we happened upon a weird looking truck, painted to look like an old-school camera. There was a huge line of people so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be something called Inside Out Project, the London edition. It was started by an artist called JR from France, who used portraits as a way to speak to the world about different issues (take a gander at the website, it's really interesting stuff!). The London version was essentially asking "What do you have to say to the world?" through facial expression in your portrait. The photos were printed in HUGE format, and then they glued them to the sidewalk in rows.

Not the type of people to miss such an amazing opportunity, Erin and I decided to stand in line. About 1.5 hours later, we got our turn. So when you finally go into the truck there's like a little photo booth, and then you literally have 6 seconds to think of something, and then it takes your picture. And that's it. So here was mine!

 And there we are, being immortalized on the sidewalk behind the Somerset House...at least until the rain washes us away...or they take it down. Whichever comes first.

Somerset House:

Anyway, then we were off to Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey, as well as Big Ben:

There's a statue of good ol' Abraham Lincoln near the Abbey:

And then there's this giant blue cock in Trafalgar Square. I have no idea why. I shall have to investigate further: