We finally made it to an English speaking country! Granted, this didn't matter too much since, one, pretty much everywhere we've been people have spoken English and, two, it was still difficult to understand people! But we did have a bonus here; we had a great tour guide, Susan. Matt and I graduated high school with Susan, and thanks to the greats at Facebook, it's been easy to keep up with each other even though we haven't lived near each other in ten years. Our first night there we met up with Susan and her husband Rod for dinner, and we were pleasantly surprised to see another guest there, Estelle. Estelle was a foreign exchange student at our high school during senior year, so it was kinda a mini reunion. It was a lot of fun catching up and seeing some familiar faces.
Matt and I did lots of walking while in London. We did another free walking tour, and I thought the meeting point was close to our hotel. Well, if you consider a 50 minute walk close, then I guess it was. The walking tour took us by Buckingham Palace, lots of WWII monuments, some of the royal palaces, Trafalgar Square, Parliament, Big Ben, lots of parks; lets just say it was a LOT of walking. Which was good, because it helps balance out all the eating we've been doing. We learned that the city began giving the pigeons birth control because there were too many of them. Also the pelicans in one of the parks have began eating pigeons-this is not normal. Apparently there has been a bit of inbreading within this group of birds. After the tour we went over to Leicester Square which has TONS of movie theaters as well as all the play theaters. We were really excited to be able to watch a movie in English, so we caught the A-Team. London is about six weeks behind as far as movies go (however they always get Harry Potter on time!). We were hoping to catch Knight and Day, and Matt was sorely dissapointed when he saw it doesn't come out there until August 6th. However, we both enjoyed the A-Team, so it all worked out well.
The next day we caught up with Susan and Rod again who were gracious enough to be our guides for the day. We saw St. Paul's Cathedral and went into one of the free museums and saw some great views of the city. We rode on top of one of the double decker buses, which was actually quite fun. The museums in London are free so we stopped at the British Museum. We said our goodbyes to Susan, and then headed back to Leicester Square for a show. Unfortunately I couldn't convince Matt to see Mama Mia (and the tickets were also quite expensive), so we agreed on Sherlock Holmes. I was not at all impressed with this show-it went a bit over my head. So next time it will definitely be a musical!
Just in case I should forget, which I did, many times!
Buckingham Palace
Look kids, it's Big Ben! (Who can name that movie? Mandy-you don't get to play :)
This is actually the clock tower. Big Ben is the bell inside it, so we actually didn't see Big Ben.
Westminster Abbey
The Tower Bridge-most people think is the London Bridge. The London Bridge is actually just an ugly concrete bridge with not much of a design to it. This one is much prettier.
St. Paul's Cathedral
Unfortunately we didn't get any pics with Susan. We must remember to get some next time!
