London Bridge Is Falling Down

London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down.
London bridge is falling down, my first lady.

That’s how the song goes in a game that I used to play when I was a kid. I don’t exactly remember the mechanics of the game but my vague recollection was that two kids facing each other would form a bridge-like structure with their two arms by holding hands and then sway the connected arms sideways, while singing the song. The rest of the kids would then form a circular line and go under the swaying arms. When the song stops, the kid who ended up under the “bridge” is then “captured” and is then placed out of the line. The song continues until only one kid remains, who is then proclaimed the winner of the game. We sang it in English and looking back, I realize that we didn’t really understand the meaning of the song, as we even used the word lady for both girls and boys in the game. Anyways, as a kid, I had a quite fancy imagination of how London bridge looked like. I thought it was heavily adorned with gold ornaments and precious gems. Perhaps I associated it with the mythological kingdom of King Arthur.

In my recent trip to London, I was not of course expecting to see a bling bling bridge (fortunately!). But I was still disappointed to see that the London Bridge was nothing out of the ordinary. I read that the bridge has a rich history, and it would have been nice had they equalled it with a better architecture. But it is really just a bridge, a road bridge over the river Thames. Here is a picture I took as we were crossing it from the southern end:

And here is from the southbank, just to show you how ordinary the architecture of this bridge is:

Source: Wikimedia

Anyways, somewhere along the bank of Thames, my friend and I found this nice little bar and to quench our thirst after walking the whole day, we rewarded ourselves with drinks of frozen fresh strawberry and mango daiquiris:  

I’d love to show you some more interesting pictures of my LDN trip, but I’m too lazy to sort through them and upload here at the moment. In the meantime, hold up your glasses and cheers! Or skål as the swedes would say.

Which brings me to another interesting topic about words people say when offering a toast. But that would be for the next entry!