After a fun night out with the guys, the following morning i went out to meet up with them for lunch. I took the tube to the general area and then walked around and took some pictures of typical london streets.
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we met out and giac brought us to a place “real close by” that had great hamburgers. he was right about the hamburgers, not so much on the close by.
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the following day at some point i was in a whole foods, and this collection of comte was impressive. i could use a wheel of that….
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I think this day i was wandering around a bit by myself. i had intended to go to the natural history museum, but apparently due to it being summer, every child in england had the same idea. when i got there there was easily a 2 hour wait if not more, and i said scratch that. instead i decided to rent a city bike and ride around in hyde park.
area around the park
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natural history museum
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hyde park
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then i met back up with the ladies, and this is when it decided to start raining on our trip
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at this point in the evening, i left them to go watch another play, and i decided to try to get some sunset shots of the tower bridge.
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i managed to capture some decent shots, but i decided from then on i would take my tripod with me, as i had a little incident. in the last shot, i was setting my camera up on the wide stone railing alone the boardwalk. i was snapping pictures away happily, but upon review of the pictures, decided i did not have enough sky in them as the camera was sitting a little low. i thought i needed to raise the lens exactly about an iPhone in height, and since i had nothing else, used my iPhone to prop the lens up. i was gleefully snapping away, got the picture above, and as i was lifting my camera off the ledge (apparently the ledge was beveled slightly) my phone started to slide and in slow mo i reached for it just as it went over and i leaned over the railing and watched it fall 10m towards the thames and hit some rather large looking rocks (which can be seen bottom right in the photo above).
at this point, I’m thinking what the hell, and I’m in a sort of shock. luckily there was a rocky bank where i was, and it wasn’t just water. but i looked to my left and to my right, and saw no way of getting down! Now mind, it was also dusk! the sun was setting, and i had no flashlight. so time was limited. and i needed my phone to coordinate where to go after this with the ladies, and in order to figure out how to get there! i said, ill just start walking along and figure out if theres a way down. i walked all the way to the bridge, and then under it, and luckily on the other side of the bridge there was a staircase down! so now I’m walking along this really rocky and slippery bank, thinking my god, my phones going to be in a hundred pieces. or the screens going to be cracked so badly i can’t use it at all tonight…. i kept walking towards where i dropped it, and in the darkening night sky, saw the black phone amongst some back rocks. i picked it up with trepidation, and low and behold, the glass on the front was in one piece! i hit the home button, and on the phone came! i was so relieved and amazed. i put it in my pocket, and made a hasty retreat.
once back on solid ground, i did a thorough investigation and all i could find wrong was three small chips on the main screen, and a slight bending near the power buttons. to this day I’m still amazed how the phone survived such a long fall. and i chalk the whole experience up to an important life lesson. take your tripod everywhere.
Dude you were so lucky with the phone not being shattered into a million pieces; I’m really impressed actually that it survived!
In terms of the tripod, I just find it’s so huge to pack and deal with when traveling that it’s the last thing I want to bring. Maybe I’ll look at getting one of those smaller tripods that fold up real small.