London London Bridge its going down

Its a little distorted but this is on our train ride to London at 8 am in the morning! We hit every highlight and it may not have been Rome in a Day but it was London in a day. We got an extremely early start and got the day pass for the train there and back and it included transportation on the "tube" of London, which is like the Subway. That was a really cool experience, and it was so convenient. It was easy to navigate and we just zipped around. A couple of times it was extremely crowded and we had to stand with our purses in the middle of us. Packed like sardines in a can!

 After we took the tube out of Paddington station (so cool by the way) our first stop was the Natural History Musuem. It didn't open until 10 so we walked to the Queen's Gardens. Apparently everything in London sounds fancy because the Queen's gardens were nothing more than some apartment buildings. We circled back to the museum and it was impressive. The first thing we saw when we walked in was a HUGE dinosaur.

I don't have it but we definitely got a group picture with the head popping up behind us. We also saw a group of girls taking a picture and when they were ready none of them smiled, it was very modelish. I guess you can experience culture in several ways and that was very amusing. I would explain about the dinosaur but the picture below would do a lot better job than I could.



We spent about an hour there and then got back on the tube toward Hyde Park!

 We got off close to Hyde Park but stopped off to see this arch. It wasn't very informative but it was cool, just like everything else in London.

 Both of these are on the edge of Hyde Park, which is on a lot of movies because it has a lot of beautiful flowers and bike paths.

 I haven't been to New York but if I were to guess, this is what it would have been like. This is Burberry, a huge store, and we also saw Rolex shop...so fancy. Lindsay tried to take a picture of the outside and they wouldn't even let her do that.



I actually got a picture in an iconic London telephone booth! Something that was hard was finding an appropriate one. We'll just say they like to advertise for inappropriate things, all over them.

 Next we went Harrod's. I thought it would be like New York Macy's but it was far far fancier than that. We're talking marble, 5 floors, elaborate window shopping and Prada, Gucchi, Doche and Gabbana with an exquisite light blue fur crop sweater with some nice bejewling. I have to give a shoutout to my girl Molly and mention Mr. Selfridge. Ya'll may not know what it is but its a show about an American and the first with a department store. Its like that with several people waiting to help you with perfume or whatever you would want to try on. No pictures allowed here either.

On the left is my kids' lasagna that we grabbed for lunch. It was delicious and cheap!




One more thing close to Harrod's. All over London there were the typical taxi cabs and all I could think about was Sherlock and that one episode where the taxi driver is the killer. So took a quick shot of that.

 We went to Piccadilly Circus after that, which is the equivalent of the Times Square and it was pretty cool, but next was pretty awesome. We went to Trafalgar's square. On the right a guy would draw flags for the countries where everyone was represented and it was cool to see how many nationalities gathered within that one day.





There were several performers at Trafalgar's square including a guy doing bag pipe's, dancers (like fighting dancers, probably thought they were cooler than they were) and even some protestors. That actually seemed like a big deal and lots of police were there trying to stop them. Very tempting to join.






A huge part of Trafalgar's square is the National Gallery. So many beautiful paintings to look at. By this time we had done so much and we were all tired so what better place to take a nap than a national museum. So we sat on the benches for about 45 minutes while a couple of us took a nap. I won't say which ones did that.

Below is just a picture of me in front of Trafalgar's square!

Going past Trafalgar's square we were so close. You can see Big Ben poking through at the end of the street.


 We turned left down one of these streets then got to a bridge where we could see the Big Ben across next to the London Bridge and the London Eye on the water in between the two bridges. Don't worry--I got an individual picture, a group picture and a picture just of the landmark for every single famous London place.

 Walking across the bridge we saw the London Eye, which we didn't get a chance to ride but maybe the next time!

 There is a picture of me with both of them behind me!

 I got several pictures of the Big Ben because it was just so unreal. Big story at this part that I'd rather leave out but I will include. As we were walking the London Bridge we got a site that I would've been fine without. Apparently we were lucky enough to be in town when the annual Naked Bike Ride was coming through town. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures so I can't show ya'll just how ugly it was. Hundreds of naked unfit people riding their bikes, to the tune of Ring of  Fire. Won't hear that song without the bad memory from now on.


Moving onto more pleasant things, we just turned the corner, and there was WESTMINSTER ABBEY!! I was dumbfounded it was so beautiful. It was built in the 1500s and it had so many graves on the inside and everything was so elaborate and the exquisiteness just amazed me.

 There's some information above about Westminster Abbey which I found so interesting. Then there's me in front of it. We got so lucky and we were there in time for evensong. So we went to church service inside of Westminster Abbey! Bre kept thinking that Will and Kate would come interrupt at any moment and renew their vows. I am sure they will just come in another Saturday and we missed them. 

 Towards the end of the day we went to the Tower Bridge that raises and lowers and it was of course beautiful. We're getting a little bit tired at this point but it is so cool. We had dinner and went all out with desserts and bread at an Italian restaurant. Observation: LOTS and lots of italian food I feel like.

I didn't get a lot of pictures of the Tower of London but I got a few. One was in operation in the 1300s. Nuts.

Of course we stuck around and got a picture on the London Bridge at night. Such a fun night with awesome girls. We were the perfect little group.


















This last lovely picture is Bre magnifying the sound using her mouth. Who cares that it doesn't work near as well as your hand, its way more fun. This doesn't need much commentary. I'll end our wonderful day in London with it.