London Baby!!

London is of course FANTASTIC as usual. We arrived from Dublin, took the London Tube - yes we managed with all of our luggage and made it out to the Regent's Park area of Swiss Cottage where we are staying. Everyone was tired of dragging their crap around, but we made it. Oh and side note, Aer Lingus is a great airline. Lots of leg space, very expedient, pleasant and helpful employees.

So the first day, David, Tim and I headed out while the others took a nap in the hotel. We took the Jubilee line down to Westminster and promptly came out at Parliament and Big Ben - so that we could get on the London Eye. The Eye is BRILLIANT. You can see forever - and the fact that we had great sunny weather it was just gorgeous. The cost is UKL 15.50 (abt $28 USD) and is a 30 minutes 'flight'. We loved it. We then walked around Parliament and tried to get into Westminster Abbey - but it closes at 330pm so we just missed being able to go in.

Yesterday we went to the Tower of London. The vast size of the tower and the amazing Crown Jewels were worth the cost alone. There are STAIRS, STAIRS and more STAIRS. You go up three flights to go down two. LOL. We were all sick of the stairs. The Beefeaters were giving tours, the Royal Fussilers were changing guard. The Germans were EVERYWHERE - - yes, it was tourist day for those from Germany apparently. The Armour from the Royal Armouries inside the tower is still awe inspiring. The fact that such craftsmanship went into the little minute of details makes you wonder what happened to us and why we're always in such a hurry - having to import things from Asia with low quality. Such a shame. Did I mention how amazing the Crown Jewels and the Gold flagons, pestles, chalices, punch bowls, etc are? There is a punch bowl which is about as large as a Mini Cooper automobile in the displays. I can't imagine how many people it takes in order to lift that solid gold punchbowl.

We then went on to Harrods. What more can I say? HUGE! LARGE! Amazing. We saw a $40,000 dollar bottle of Remy Martin Champagne/Cognac. There was a $250,000 watch. The food halls are always such fun to walk through. The desserts are so yummy! Tim had a raspberry cheesecake, I had a chocolate mint cupcake. It was nice, but then I saw the gelato - Blood Orange, Green Apple, Mango, Mixed Berry - - we were all drooling.

After walking for 10 hours, we were done. Back to hotel for dinner.

Today, our final day in London - we're heading to Buckingham Palace and hope to try and pickup tickets at Leicester Square for Spamalot tonight. We'll see - fingers crossed.

Tomorrow we'll drive back to Manchester - stopping either at Warwick Castle or at Oxford University. We fly early on Saturday to Chicago - stay overnight and back to San Francisco on Sunday morning. Back to work for us on Monday - - oh the tragedy!

Until later...