Saturday was our “touristy” day. We had a lot to see, and only one day to do it in. We grabbed breakfast and lunch from Tesco, and headed for the Tube. We started at Buckingham Palace. We arrived 45 minutes before the Changing of the Guards. After about 10 minutes, the crowds were so unruly that we gave each other a mutual “Are these crowds bugging you as much as they’re bugging me?” glance. We decided to walk around the attractions nearby and see how the crowds were as the procession started.People, people everywhere

St. James Park

We listened to a few songs by a military band. The highlight was a orchestral version of “One Moment in Time.” The epitome of British culture, let me tell ya!

One of my product placement photos (I’ve got a few more on Facebook) I thought it was funny that the Dr. Pepper Zero was “sweetened with vegetable extracts.” It tasted less sweet than Diet Dr. Pepper. Coca-Cola owns the Dr. Pepper licensing in the UK, thus the “zero” brand name. UK Coke was awesome – sweetened with cane sugar, not HFCS. So was Pineapple Fanta. Lilt was pretty good, but too tart for my taste. I HATED the Diet Coke with Cherry….tasted like rancid cough syrup.

Westminster Abbey

Houses of Parliament (aka Big Ben). I thought it was the most beautiful thing I saw on the whole trip. It sounds to touristy cliche, but it really was ornate and spectacular. The photos just don’t do it justice.

Waiting for our boat ride down the River Thames

View from the Thames

The dome shaped building is called “The Gherkin.” I also heard others call it the “Towering Innuendo,” and the “Crystal Phallus.” Definitely one of the more modern buildings in the London skyline.

London Tower Bridge

Taylor in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral

St. Paul’s Cathedral was the only paid attraction that we did on the trip. We were tempted by the London Eye and a double-decker bus tour, but I don’t think anything we could have done would have been as awesome as St. Paul’s. We toured several parts of the cathedral, and then started our trek up to the dome. After 250 steps, you reached the “Whispering Room.” 150 steps later was an observation deck with this gorgeous view:

We ascended another 150ish stairs to the observation deck at the top of the dome. I was huffing and puffing, and very tired after all those stairs, but the view was definitely worth it!

Coming down was much easier!

We crossed the Milenneum Bridge to Tate Modern. We looked at exhibits on two floors.

We also saw the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater

View from the top of Tate Modern towards St. Paul’s

Our legs and feet were aching by this point. The closest tube station happened to be closed, and we couldn’t figure out which one to walk to. We ended up walking about 25 minutes to Waterloo station, and I felt like I was going to collapse (Yeah, I’m out of shape. Not used to walking 8+ hours in a day) Our last “must see” stop was Trafalgar Square…and that’s where we went.

We got dinner at a pub called Garfunkels. Taylor got fish and chips, I got a chicken and mushroom pie with mash. For dessert, we had bread and butter pudding with warm custard.

We got one last view of the Square, and headed underground to go back to our hotel. We had about 30 pounds in cash left at this point, so we went to Tesco to pick up some sweets and souveniers to bring home. Chocolate digestives, Bird’s custard, Smarties, KitKats, Fruit Pastilles, Jammy Dodgers, and Aero bars. I cannot even describe the look on Taylor’s face as I kept piling sweets into the basket.
We got back to our hotel, and went into the Business Centre to use the internet (20 minutes per pound) We needed to check flight loads, and come up with backup plans in case our Heathrow to Atlanta flight fell through. In this process, we realized that our flight wasn’t going to be free…we’d have to pay the taxes and tariffs to get back into the US. That increased the total price of our entire trip about 30%, but we still completed it all for less than a one-way ticket to London would have been. We are so grateful for the kind friends and family who allowed this trip to happen….and that’s where most of this candy went to.

This is the map to the Underground. If only more cities had a system this organized…

The tube kept us from having to drive around and make sense of all the roundabouts and people driving on the other side of the road. I probably would have killed us if I just drove out onto the road here.These mailboxes remind me of the movie “Help” where they’re trying to cut off Ringo’s finger…

Friday morning we did a lot of walking around. We were hesitant to use our cell phones ($1.29 per minute, $.50 per text) so we looked for a place that we could get breakfast and wifi. After not finding any other suitable options, we hunkered down at a Starbucks for about an hour. I got in touch with Emma and we made lunch plans. She and David would pick us up from the Croydon station, which was within the 1-6 Travelcard zone. We took the tube back to Victoria Station, and onto the overground train to East Croydon station. Unfortunately, the ticket agent unknowingly sold us a 1-2 zone Travelcard. When we tried to exit the Croydon station, the gate wouldn’t release and we had to go to the “unpaid fare” window. The agent said we’d have to pay a twenty pound penalty each, but we talked her into just selling us the fare between Victoria and Croydon.

The first pub we went to was on a friends’ reccomendation, but when we arrived they said they didn’t have license for children to enter. Since Annabelle was with us, we asked for another suitable local pub. We drove to the Sandrock Pub. I got fish and chips with mushy peas, Taylor got bangers and mash. We had a lovely time visiting, and were sad we had so little time to spend with them.

David, me, and Emma

When they dropped us off at the train station, we totally flubbed on social ettiquite. We uncultured Americans just aren’t used to those friendly cheek kisses! We’ll get it right next time! We took the train back to Victoria, and spent the afternoon sightseeing.

First we went to the Science Museum. We knew we only had a few hours to spend there, so we focused on the medicine and aviation floors.

Taylor was in airplane heaven!

Spitfire

Assisting the Harrier Jet

This Rolls-Royce engine made me feel tiny (for once in my life)

For the next few hours, we did lots and lots of walking. We walked to Hyde Park, and it started to rain a little bit. We were blessed to have excellent sunny weather for the majority of the trip, but it wouldn’t have been a true experience without some rain.

Prince Albert Memorial

Trying my hand at some funky artistic photography

Gardens in Hyde Park

Princess Diana Memorial Fountain

By the time we got the the Serpentine, it was raining pretty heavily. We took turns with the one umbrella we had, and both ended up pretty wet.

Next we walked to Harrods was so posh, which is one of the most fabulous department stores in the world. I felt silly walking around in my sopping wet clothes. We toured the several departments, but especially loved the food halls, It. If I’d wanted to pay 5 pounds per kilogram of eggplant, approximately $15/lb, this would have been the place.

Ah, the sweet confections that I dilligently avoided buying (but I did get a free hazelnut truffle. Yum!)

We walked around for a few minutes, but it was starting to get dark, and we didn’t feel like staying out in the rain, so we took the tube back to Hammersmith.

We stopped at the Tesco market in the tube station and picked up sandwich fixings for dinner. We watched Zombieland after dinner, as well as some BBC. We had a pretty exhausting day, and decided to call it a night around 10:30 pm.

Emma picked us up and we drove back to her village. Her children Harry and Jack were getting ready for school. I brought a bunch of American candy for her family (Mike and Ikes, Fruit Roll Ups, Sugar Babies, Dots, Hershey Kisses, US KitKat) as well as the Great Harvest Popeye Bread. Emma offered me some squash to drink, but I had no idea what she was talking about. It is a juice concentrate that you pour into a glass of water. We walked Jack to school, and toured around her village.

When we returned from our walk, we drove to the London Temple. We walked around the grounds and snapped a bunch of pictures. It was smaller than I expected (similar in size to the Atlanta temple) and the metalwork on the exterior reminded me of the Los Angeles Temple.

Next, we drove into East Grinstead. We got hot chocolate milano drinks at Caffe Nero. It was the richest hot cocoa I’d ever had, made from Belgian chocolate.


I was so excited to finally meet Emma in person. We had become acquainted through our blogs almost two years ago, and have regularly kept in contact over Facebook and Skype.

Annabelle, Emma, and Nicole

East Grinstead

After our drinks, we went into a grocery store (to validate our parking). It was fun to see the different brands of food, and compare what is available in US markets. I was drooling over the sweets aisle. Back in her village, Emma got us some Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles, Kinder Bueno, KitKat Senses, Haribo gummies, and a juice box of blackcurrant Ribena.

We returned to pick up her pilot David, who was flying a daytrip to Egypt. After dropping him of at Gatwick, Emma dropped us off at the Three Bridges train station. We got the rail fare and travelcard at a discount by borrowing Annabelle for the familly fare. We said our goodbyes for the day, and headed toward London Victoria station.

By this time, we were really exhausted and jet lagged. Taylor fell asleep on the train, and I was pretty close to doing so myself. We transferred at Victoria station to the District line on the tube, and got off at Hammersmith. We stayed at the Novotel London West, a “four-star” hotel that only felt posh in the foyer. Our room was pretty basic; double bed, small sofa, desk, and telly. We napped for a few hours.
For dinner we went into Piccadilly Circus. We walked around for about an hour, trying to decide on what to eat. We ate at an Indian place called Chowzi. I had Palak paneer and he had lamb curry. We walked around more afterwards till we were zonked.

Me in Chinatown

As we walked back to the tube station, I ran my fingers through my hair, and something was crunchy in back. When we were back to our hotel room, I noticed the tell-tale splat of bird poop on my jacket. Yep, a bird pooped on my head in London. We watched a movie in our room and went to bed around 10 pm.