London Baby! (we've been watching Friends at night)

Today we got up pretty early. I woke up at 5 and was pretty much awake (we had gone to bed at 10:30 the night before though!). I made myself lay down for a while, but finally got up at 7. We ate breakfast and then got started on our day. We left the flat around 9.

Starting our day!


The outside of the flat


The mews where the flat is (I think that means alley for us)


There's a row of embassies near the flat that we've walked by each time. When we later came home there was a small group of people outside of Turkey's demanding that mass graves be opened in Turkey.


Backwards car!


Pretty walkways on the edge of a park. I love when cities have these!


This sign was in the grass at the park and I thought it was funny


Geese! We didn't mess with them since they can be so mean


St. James' Park Lake. This reminded me of 101 Dalmations when Pongo pulls Roger and Anita into the pond :)


One of the walkways that we walked


At the Wellington Barracks. The guys were doing marching training or something...right after I took this picture (and there were other tourists next to us), one of the guys near the back turned his head and made a funny face, sticking his tongue out at us. Guess he's not ready for the palace yet! But it cracked us up.


More marching


Look at them driving on the wrong side of the road...we're getting better at knowing which way to look when crossing crosswalks though!


Big truck trying to squeeze out of the alley. Yikes!


Office buildings. I wish ours looked like this


Westminster Abbey!




It kind of reminded me of It's a Small World
At first we weren't sure that we wanted to go inside and pay for the tour (16 pounds each!). But we decided that we would probably regret not seeing it, so we went in. Boy were we glad that we did! They had audio tours (narrated by Jeremy Irons!), so we could look around at our own pace, and not have to read a bunch of placards. The architecture was beautiful, and there was so much history there. We saw lots of tombs including Darwin, Newton, Chaucer, Handel, Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Mary and many others. Fun fact: although there is a monument for him, Shakespeare isn't actually buried there. Unfortunately there was no photography allowed inside, but since there is google now, it wasn't that big of a deal. If you want to see what we saw, you'll have to google it :P


Big Ben! I don't think the clock face is big enough to have four children stand on the second hand like in Peter Pan. Disney, you've misled me.




This was outside a Churchill museum that we didn't visit today, but I figured I'd get a picture of his statue


Parliament building (which Big Ben is a part of) on the Thames




We crossed the bridge and got this iconic shot. Then we walked down this side of the Thames on the Wharf. There was some sort of festival going on, but we just walked through. We did find Subway on this side, and our American taste buds were very happy


The eye of London. Kind of like a slow ferris wheel, but you stand in it, and it rotates taking you higher and around. It was expensive, and I don't like tight spaces like that. No thanks. So we skipped it. But it looked cool!


They were building sand "Castles" on the shore. This is a couch :)


We kept walking and realized that we could either keep going to our intended destination of the Tower of London, or we could cross back and see St. Paul's Cathedral instead. We decided that since we had already walked this far, we may as well see the Cathedral and save the Tower of London area for another day. So here's St. Pauls!


It was too big and we were too close to get all of the dome and us in the same shot.


There was no old lady sitting on the steps and feeding the birds. But the song did play in my head :)


Once again, we couldn't take any pictures inside, so google it. We liked St. Paul's even better than Westminster. It was more awe inspiring. So amazing how big and majestic they were able to build something like that in the 16th century. Fun fact: there's been some sort of cathedral on the grounds since 604 A.D., although it has needed to be rebuilt a couple of times. There was an ipod audio/video tour, and while we were there they did the Eucharist. It was less historical then Westminster, and more religiously spectacular. There were mosaic tiles near the ceiling that glittered everywhere. The high altar was incredible. We were able to climb up to the Whisperings, inside the dome. They call it that because you can hear someone whisper from across the dome (similar to our Capital Building). We then continued to climb up and up. We arrived outside on the Dome, and then were able to enter higher part of the dome and kept climbing. We climbed 530 steps. We also got our Christmas ornament here :)


But the climb was definitely worth it!!






They're building the tallest building in all of Europe (for now)


On the side of St. Paul's. I think this is the arch that the children and their father walk through in Mary Poppins


A view of St. Paul's through some business buildings


We had seen this church from the top of St. Paul's and walked to it. (after a starbucks fix too). We think it was bombed during WWII. The only signs told about how the flowers were planted in position with the original floor plan of the church. There were columns also that were where the original columns were and had vines beginning to grow on them.


It started to rain then. It felt like it was so late in the day but it was only 2:30! We decided that we were too tired to walk all the way back to the flat, so we took the underground back.


But first we got a picture of the Millenium bridge, which we also saw from the top of St. Paul's. Harry Potter 6 anyone?


This made me laugh. I have new jeans that are dyed really dark. I washed them before we left, but the rain made them leave dye on my legs. It looked like I was really badly bruised though!



We got back to our flat around 3:30. We cleaned up and then took a nap. We had been planning on not napping, but we were tired from how much we walked. So we napped. We're still pretty tired though! We got up around 7 and have been watching TV. It'll be time to go to bed soon. Sounds amazing to me!