Its a travel day for us and its sad to be leaving this wonderful city of London.  I especially love the people.  Here you can stand waiting to cross the street and hear any language being spoken by people right next to you.  Not only that but these people look like they could be from portland …

We are taking a train and going underneath the english channel and we will be getting off in Calais France.  We are renting a car there and making a 4 hoir drive to Bayeux where we have a place for 4 nights and going to be exploring the normandy beaches.

We went to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

I wasnt tall enough too see the event.
The rest of the day went
Museum .. Pub .. Museum .. Pub .
You can guess what the highlights were for me …
The first museum was mostly statues and art. It has to be my favorite museum so far. Everywhere you looked there was a place to sit down. Mamy of these museums make you stand alot.

The next museim was at the british library. We saw the Magna Carta and the avtual writings of leonardo daVinchi. Did you know he wrote stuff right to left and backwsrd in Italian. You neede a mirror to read what he wrote (and the ability to read italian). This was so people couldnt steal his ideas … wow …

Today was the churchhill warroom. 
Everyone got a good nights sleep and we were up and out of the house by 11:30.  We stopped at pret a manger a chain coffee shop.  The starbucks of UK.  We then arrived at the war room.  We spent 3 hours learning about churchhill.  It was great and learn alot. 

Then we went to Harrods.  A huge shopping center with very high end type of stuff to buy.  We got in and out very quickly.   Then we had dinner and home exhausted.  This tourist stuff is hard work. 

Heres a picture of big Ben with Scott and Bunny…

We got back to the flat at 6.  I slept til 8 and then went out for some groceries.  It midnight and bens off to bed and scott and i are up watvhing a bruce willis movie and listening to it rain really hard out.  We r suppose to do buckingham palace tomorrow….

Yestetday was a big day for walking.  The Tower of London was on the todo list today.  We got there and the lines were not too long so we paid our 70 lbs and went in.  A tour started at  12:45 pm and so we listen to a choir singing fpr 15 mins.  The beefeaters tour started .. the tour guide Bob was great and really funny.

We went thru the gounds of the tower of london.  Saw weapons
. Armour …  and the crown jewels
  It was about 4 pm and we were tited and hungry.  We walked out and it started to rain.  Ben once again found a great place to have a late lunch.  It was right across the street from the tower of london and full of character. 

We had lunch and started to talk about whats next.  Bunny mentioned going to a movie in the evening and i knew i would last about 5 mins in a movie theater before i wouldd be asleep.  Everyone decided to go back to the flat and relax.  I think everyone was really tired…

Its 6:30 am and its goimg to be our first day in london.  We need to have converter plugs … the ones i bot in the US are junk and dont work.  Scotts awake also … so we decide to walk to a elevtronics store over in the same area as we were the previois night
. It opens at 8am.  So Scott and i get cleaned up and take off at 7:30.  We ki.d of got lost on the way but it was rush hour for everyone and it was crowded and bussilling with people trying to get to work.  We got our electronic converters and made our way bavk to the flat.  We got back and bunny and ben wrte still asleep.  We got everyone ready and its off to the british museum to see the mummies.  We got there a little before noon and it wasnt that crowded. 

We spent about 4 hours looking at ancient egyption ruins and mummies.  We then went to the national gallery to look at Art.  I dont get looking at art…
So then we ate off to have dinner in the soho disyrict of london.  The soho area of london is known for its chinese resturants.  We choose one and had a great meal with lots of food left over to bring home.

We have arrived!!!!
We got in at 12:45.  We got in the customs line.  It was about an hour and a half to get thru customs and to the train to get into london.  We got on the train.  Switched to the tube and gott off at our stop… St James Park.  We got out of the tube and started to walk to our place where we were staying.  We were all exhausted towing heavy luggage and the directions were sketchy.  After about a hour of wandering around … we finally got to the apartment .. what a relief … we have arrived.  We recovered from our travels and went out walking in the city. Our first night plan was to go to Sherlock Holmes pub. We walk by Westminster church and it happened to be tge time that they do their evening song. We went in and sat down. Rick steves recommending doing this because you get to see inside west minster abbey catedral and dont have to pay the 20 lbs per person. It was about an hour long and Scott and i alternated falling asleep. We got out and began the walk to da pub. It was about 7 pm and we walked by parliment and aling the thames. It was beautifil and lots of people. Walking along the thames reminds me alot of walking along the willamette in tom mcall park. I m thinking with all these people around we r probably not even going to get in SH pub. We finally found it and walked right in. Ee found 4 bars stools together and sat down. Time for refreshments. This was Scotts first time to ordet a beer .. legally .. drinking age is 18. So the bar keep asked him for his id. She noticed that his name was Sherlock and made a big deal about his name being Sherlock. She was a sweetie and we hit it off with her. Her name was Polona and we had a lot of fun with her. I got a puc of her and Scott but she asked us not to publish the photo on the web. We wound up getting a booth and having numerous beers and fish and chips. What else do u order in london. We waljed out with a t-shirt and a hat 90lbs later… Back to the flat for the evening.

Ali King gave us a ride to the airport.  Picked us up at 10 and were in plenty of time before our flight.  We went thru the electronic check in and then got in line for security check.  It was about a half hour and we were thru the line with no problems.  No strip search either .. darn it …
We had plenty of time so we had a coffee right by the srcurity check. 
We got to the gate and began the ‘waiting for our flight’ process. 
We boarded at 12:30 and the plane took off at12:45 right on time.  I sat next to a guy who was a lot bigger than me.  I know he was uncomfortable the whole flight and so was I.  We got into Minneapolis at 5:45 pm and the connecting flight was 9:45 pm.  So ben looked at the list of resturants we had to coose fr and picked Rock Bottom.  It worked out really well.  We got there and there was a short line.  But within 10 mins we had a nice booth.  A couple of refreshments and a good meal later and we were off to the gate for our 9 hour flight to london heathrow airport. 
We boarded the plane and took off right on time.  I had an aisle seat one row ahead of BBS. 
The plane ride started well …
everyone had a screen in front of
them which had various movies to choose fr and also games to play.  They served us dinner .. i had some kind of chicken and rice dish while watching MI Ghost Recon.  Then i played some hold em poker.  Then i tried to go to sleep and couldnt so i tried to watch another movie and the device froze and i couldnt watch anything or play anything.  I looked back and ben and scott had their heads on bunnys shoulders on each side ..  it was cute.  I spent the rest of the flight trying to get comfortable and couldnt.  It was miserable.  We finally got into London.  I was very hapoy to have that flight done with.