London; part 1

OK first of all... London was super cool!!!

Kaite has already started her portion of blogging about our trip, so rather than saying basically the same thing about what we did and where we went, I will just add my own commentary...

SUNDAY the jet lag sucked! Hugh decided not to sleep on the plane so Abigail slept on the floor (between the chairs, where your feet are supposed to go, mad props) and I slept on Hugh. The apartment was really nice and we all bummed around for the rest of the night because we were pooped and I was so freaking excited about all the pies that England has, it is a problem. Abigail and I managed to stay up until 7:45.. I think Hugh went to bed around 9 or so?

MONDAY while Katie was in class, we went to Westminster Abbey, and it could have been one of my favorite places we visited. There was so much history within such a condensed area (considering how long it has been around) that I could have spend another hour in there reading all of the graves and memorials. We had lunch at another pub and more pies to go around :D Then we walked through part of St. James Park and saw the Buckingham Palace. Seeing as how it would get dark at 4:30 and most museums close at 5 and it is much too dark to do any sightseeing, we were about to head back to the apartment, when we saw the Queen's Gallery. It is located on the side of the palace and it contains art work, armor, furniture, cutlery and JEWELRY! which had all been in the Royal Family. The jewelry was the most impressive, in my opinion, however google wasn't helping me and therefor there is no picture to show my favorite diamond necklace on display...



Dinner was at a yummy at an italian restaurant near the apartment. Abi had a yummy desert, I think it looked like gonads covered in milk chocolate mouse, GROSS... the waiter was entertaining, but very hard to hear.
Sleeping over at Katie's was short-lived. I wanted to sleep all the way though the night and not wake up at 4am, so I took an ambian and tried to stay wake and talk while she was doing homework, needles to say I fell asleep mid sentence and started to drool and I fail to remember any of our conversation.

TUESDAY at the Tower of London, again I was the last one out because I was trying to read everything, so people were waiting for me at the exit. That is where the picture on Katie's blog was taken... they were waiting for me. We had lunch at St. Katherine's Dock and from all the walking around for a few hours we walked to the grocery store and then ordered a
turkey. Naps for all! Then we all headed out to greek food and Avenue Q which was so great! It was hilarious!

WEDNESDAY the bus tour sucked and it was so cold and miserable that I was so glad once we got off! Having to pay to use a restroom is stupid, especially when you don't have any money and are about to pee your pants! So not cool.
When Katie brought out her sandwich, we were ALL salivating, however Kaite's comment about how we never know when we are going to get food etc... well it depends, sometime its the ONLY priority or it isn't a priority AT ALL... no middle ground so its hard to tell. Then when Katie maneuvered us through non busy streets, she didn't mention they were the whore-house streets... and how Katie knew of these streets, we will never know...
I had heaps of fun watching everyone try and climb up, seeing all the other tourists there taking ridiculous pictures (us included) and the group of people dancing and being video taped. I also totally missed the statue that Katie was talking about but the video link is pretty cool, and after seeing it I wish I would have noticed what she had been talking about, or heard the conversation.
Now on to Covent Garden and the street performer, he made me laugh but only because he wasn't succeeding and I don't think it was on purpose. Poor fellow...



THURSDAY we went SHOPPING! But amazingly I didn't but anything but that may have to do with the fact that the pound is 1.67 to the US dollar... boo hoo And now I have to fill in this part of the day.
We left around 930 am, and took the bus and then the tube to Harrods, or the shopping area around it. And let me tell you that Harrods is HUGE! It takes up an entire block, the bottom floor is half food court, and when they say food court, don't think American shopping mall. Think elegant sit down dining of 6 different types, gourmet to the max! It was unbelievable.
Jim is not a fan of shopping so he did not join us or the Simmons for our shopping adventure and so he went to some museum instead. Then Zach and the gang went to the War Room Museum and then the Churchill museum. It was interesting but by that point in the week we were all burnt out by museums... but the coolest thing about the War Rooms, was that the day that WWII ended all the staff working there turned out the lights and it wasn't touched again until it was proposed to turn into a museum. So everything there was exactly as it was the day the war ended.
This is also Thanksgiving Day but Katie had class, as you could tell so Mat Simmons ordered Indian take-out. None of us ever had any Indian so it was an adventure, and we never had any idea what exactly we were eating... Great Adventure!

FRIDAY we took a long, long, longggg train ride to the complete opposite side of London to Hampton Court Palace. It was beautiful and magnificent, also quite cold but ho hum. We toured around the palace of how Henry the VIII lived and how the castle worked, with headphones and all! It was funny how many tours gave out head phones and a recording of what you are looking at. There was Westminster Abbey, Queen's Gallery, the tour bus War Rooms, Churchill, and Hampton Court. Impressive in my opinion.



On the train ride back I left everyone in the center of London for some alone time. I wandered along the edge of Hyde park and through random blocks of the city because I didn't really know where I was, and the streets do not run off of a grid system which was quite confusing. I went back into Harrods on my way home and purchased my Christmas present to myself, which was a fabulous wool overcoat, which I had seen the day before.
I came back to a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, Robin was there along with our whole gang!




More coming up soon!