London -- Day 2

On our first morning in London we woke up at 6:30 to rain pelting the window.  I had mixed emotions about braving the rain to go exploring, but the host at check-in assured us that the rains in London never lasted too long.  We all bundled up in warm clothes and set off for our day.   We had a HUGE breakfast, thinking that if we ate a lot that maybe we could skip lunch and then just buy dinner.  We dined on bangers, grilled tomatoes, baked beans, fried eggs, blood pudding, and Babybel cheese. It was all very good, with the exception of the blood pudding.  The girls loved the Babybel cheese so much that they both went and got extras so that they could have them later in the day as a snack.  That would be our cheap side coming out in us!

We set off to catch the shuttle that would take us to the Canada Water Underground station, where we would be able to explore the entire city.  Basically, we just flew by the seat of our pants.  One of us would mention a place to go and then we took off.  It was great!  We rode the tube to London Bridge station and this is what we saw:





I absolutely loved the fresh flowers that were readily available all over Europe!





By the time we actually get to this point, breakfast was already forgotten as I'm ready to sit down and have something to eat! Not that I was hungry, but I just wanted to try everything! This was by far my favorite part of the underground that we experienced! I loved the old brick architecture and the cute shops. 

Ok, now don't get too excited about this next picture! It's the one you've all been waiting for.



Yup, that's her, The London Bridge. Funny how I didn't know what to expect, but it was more than this! I was a tad bit disappointed that there wasn't more to her.

We walked across the London Bridge heading toward the next underground station. I really need to back up for a moment. When we got off at the first station, I REALLY needed to go to the bathroom. Like right then! We could not find the loo. Well, I must admit that we did find one, but you had to pay to get into it. So, being the cheap wads that we are, we set out walking, and walking, and walking, and walking to find a free toilet. In the meantime we found the London Bridge, had to take some photos and then continued on our journey to find the freebie toilet. We found it! It was an hour later, but it definitely kept my mind off the cold wet day that's for sure. I'm not real sure if it was the excitement of actually finding a toilet or what, but this sink really amused me. I just had to take a picture of the sink. Why is everything in Europe so small?



I honestly had a hard time keeping my hands in the sink to wash them, but this sink was not the smallest one I used on this trip!

We hopped on the tube at the next station and immediately this happened:

Brent later confessed toward the end of our time in London that something about the tube put him to sleep. The droning noise of the train along with the swaying back and forth made him sleepy every time.

We were off again to the Houses of Parliament district. Immediately getting off you see the Eye of London:



And then you turn around and there is Big Ben:

Because all the buildings are so close together and there was a lot of construction going on, it was very difficult to get pictures of all the places we saw.









Entrance to St. Marget's:

Brent and Blair in front of St. Margaret's:

I laugh every time I see this picture.  I cannot remember which on of the girls took it but don't you love how it's just our heads and then Big Ben didn't even get all the way in the picture!  I just had to include it though...looks like the traditional tourist picture.



After visiting the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abby, London Bridge, Big Ben we were needing a kombucha!  I'd done my research before we left and even communicated with a kombucha drinker from the UK and she informed me that Whole Foods did indeed sell kombucha.  We were on a mission!  We asked where Whole Foods was and followed the instructions to Kensington High Street.  Not only did we find Whole foods, but we found an incredible shopping district in London.  We saw this little pastry shop and everything looked so beautiful that we just had to take a picture!





Have you ever seen a more beautiful chocolate rose perched on the top of a cake?

Upon entering Whole Foods, this is what I saw.  I was immediately amazed that all this food was just sitting out in the store.  Their children must be much better behaved, or never visit the store with mom and dad, because I just could not see this kind of food at a child's level not being tampered with or consumed here in the US.  Also, their laws must be more lenient about allowing food to be out in the open like this. 



Ashley took this photo and right after she took it an employee got on to her and told her, "No Pictures!"


We loved this Whole Foods, but unfortunately they did not have kombucha.  We were told that they no longer carried the product.  It was our first realization that we would have to go the entire 2 1/2 weeks without living elixir!

After leaving Whole Foods we were all starving.   We went back to the cute little pastry shop, sat down looked at the menu, ordered our food, and then bailed.  Too much time has passed, but if I remember correctly Brent had his heart set on a baguette sandwich that we saw by the station.  After some more walking, and walking, and walking, we found the place, which is called Upper Crust.  We all had sandwiches and then went next door to Big Ben's Cookies and ate our sandwiches and had a cookie.  My baguette tasted like heaven!  I don't normally eat bread in any form or fashion, but I just had to try it. It was stuffed with Brie cheese, fresh basil and tomatoes.  Just typing that makes me so hungry for another one!  I did regret consuming so much gluten later as I started having aches and pains once again.

We saw these chips when we were purchasing our baguettes: 

The girls got the biggest kick out of these chips. Brent thought it was pretty apropo that our chips are called Lays and the Brit's are called Walkers.  We Americans sure lay around a lot and the Brits are walking constantly.   We also saw chips that we all thought were pretty funny was in the airport in Iceland.  Instead of Cool Ranch Doritos, they said Cool American Doritos.

 My memory escapes me as to what we did for the rest of the afternoon, or maybe there wasn't much left of the afternoon, as we don't have pictures to prove it!  I would like to note that because we did so much walking, our breakfast only lasted a few hours, and then our lunch only lasted about an hour for me.  I was starving by 6:00 and very ready to eat a warm meal!

This was on our way back to the hotel:



We ate a delicious dinner at a pub called The Blacksmith.  I had bangers and mash, which was out of this world, Brent had fish and chips, and the girls shared some fried rice with some other Thai sides. With full tummies we were all tired and ready for bed!  BUT... we couldn't go to bed because three months prior I had requested tickets to witness the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London.  The ceremony takes place at 9:00pm every single evening, rain or shine and it has for hundreds of years. We did go back to our room after dinner and rested for a few minutes before heading out again to attend the ceremony, which I should note  that it was about a 45 minute walk/tube ride to get there.    The ceremony is simply the locking of the Tower.  The Tower of London still to this day houses all the Queen's jewels. I wished I had pictures to share, but you are not allowed to take any pictures of the ceremony.  I'll share plenty of pictures of the Tower later when we visited during the day.

Somehow, we still cannot figure out how we did it, but after leaving the Tower of London Blair and I get ahead of Brent and Ashley.  We couldn't find them and they couldn't find us, so we headed back to the hotel by ourselves.  Blair was a little nervous, and I believe Ashley was too, but all was well and we found each other at our end destination within minutes.  I was so glad to see that small uncomfortable European bed by the time we got back! What an enjoyable yet exhausting day.....