London...the beginning and the end of the trip!!!

The last country we visited on our trip was England. This is where our friends who planned the week actually are stationed right now. We flew in and flew out of London, so our time in London was broken up at the beginning of our trip and the end.
Day # 1 We arrived in England after flying 4 hours to Atlanta and 8 and half hours to Heathrow airport in London. Took a shuttle train subway thing out to our amazing hotel in downtown London. As we drug our suitcases through the streets to walk a few blocks to our hotel, I was already taking in the sights. That explains why we almost got ran over by a taxi. It was one of those cool black funky London taxis that I've only seen on TV. Sorry Mr. Taxi man. He didn't seem sorry, so we guessed that pedestrians don't have the right of way. The view from the hotel was amazing. It looked right out to "Big Ben" and Parliament and an amazing bridge over the river. It took a while for everyone else to arrive and I was really craving some sleep, but no naps were on the agenda.
We got ready and headed out for dinner and taking in a few sights. We went over the bridge and captured pictures of Big Ben. We walked until we found a pub that had room for a group our size. They put us upstairs by ourselves. Thanks! I tried fish and chips with mashy peas and Jared had beaf pie. The best part of mine was the mashy peas and fries. Jared liked the meat pie which is a very popular dish here. After dinner we were off to Wicked.
Wicked was amazing.....too bad I was in and out for a lot of it. I was soooo tired at this point that I would try to stay awake and then wake up a few minutes later. We had not slept yet at this point...sleeping on the plane was impossible for me. I had anticipated this happening however and had read up on the Wicked plot so that when I woke up I could jump right back in to where we were. Anyway, I think they are right when they tell you to not plan a show the first night you arrive in Europe! After the show we took in a few more sights like Picadilly Circus and Big Ben at night. Then we called it a night!!



Waiting for Wicked to start



Day # 2 in London This was actually at the end of all our travels. We road the train all the way down from Edinburgh. We dropped Missy and Doug off at their stop in Nothern England and it was a sad and quick goodbye. Great hosts, great friends, great times!! The rest of us arrived at the famed "King's Cross Station" thanks to J.K. Rowling. We quickly found platform 9 and 3/4 and took some pictures for the kids. We rode the subway to our awesome hotel: The London Chancery Court. We bought "Big Bus" tickets for one of those on and off tour bus lines through London. After a quick lunch and a not so quick losing of Stefani and Troy, we hopped on the "Big red Bus". Our first stop was the Tower of London, which wasn't a tower at all. It is more like a fortress. We did the quick version of walking by and seeing a "Meat Head" guard dude at the fence. (Why are they called that?) We took some pictures and learned that the "Tower Bridge" was built to replace the original London bridge which was for some reason shipped off to Lake Havasu in Arizona state. Again...not sure why! The tower bridge is really cool though and we caught some pictures of it.
Next we headed to Buckingham Palace. WOW! I loved it. Unfortuneatly it was just closing to all tours. I would have enjoyed going in. The grounds were amazing with beautiful red flowers. The guards were fascinating and I couldn't stop taking pictures of everything I saw. The statue in the middle of the round about was a popular place for people to sit and rest and very beautiful. We bought ice-cream cones and walked through "Green Park". It reminded me of the many shaded green areas of Washington D.C.
We headed to Harrods department store next. Missy had told us that it was amazing and the largest Department store in the world (? I think?) It was massive and expensive. Jared and I thought about buying the rainbow sequined dress on the clearance rack by the rest room until we saw its tag for $2,ooo dollars. It didn't come in maternity anyway! Oh the bathroom was sporting perfume samples in the womens and a man who sprayed smelly spray after every person urinated in the men's. It was a little uppity to say the least, but fun to visit. While waiting for our Big Bus to arrive on the curb for 25 minutes, we were dazzled by all the fancy cars that rolled by. Rolls Royces, Lamborguinni's, Ferraris, Lexuses, BMW's, ....etc. It was like a car show! We were definitely in the Nicest part of town. We ate italian for our last dinner together. It was good, but the service was soooo slow...a common theme for the week! Before calling it a night, we all downloaded pictures onto Bryan's laptop. No small feat when you have at least 3,000 pictures! We enjoyed our turn down service and FELL into bed around midnight.
Its hard to summarize such an amazing week. You all just need to go and experience it for yourself. The formula for an amazing week is: 1. Get some great friends to go with you, make sure one or all are comedians, 2. Plan way too much in much too little of time so you can feel "punchy" all week and see a lot 3. Invite a very big pregnant lady along, she may not be funny, but you'll spend some time laughing at her walking/scaling up stairs, trails, and mountain faces which lead to castles 4. Buy an amazing camera and take pictures of everything that interests you even the little things. 5. Plan to do it again really soon...life goes by way too fast to talk about all the things "you wanted to do some day". Thanks to all of our friends who came along who always make "someday" a real memory....where to next?!!!
Platform 9 and 3/4 at King's Cross Station

Funky London Taxis
Tower of London Fortress
Tower Bridge






Buckingham Palace