Days Packed Full of AWESOME

Well here we are it is the end of Thursday and I have yet to post of I think the last 3 days, I do apologize. It has been quite busy. And now I believe I am prepared to tell you and show you a bit of it.
We will start with Tuesday our first full day here. We started our day with a visit to BUCKINGHAM PALACE.
It was so beautiful and a whole lot of fun. I learned so much here and upon leaving really wanted to learn as much of British History that I could. I felt so inadequate not knowing some things and was quite proud when I did know other things. After Buckingham Palace a small group of us went to Piccadilly Circus, had a bite of lunch and walked around. Researched prices on some theatre tickets, you know the important things in life. After Lunch, we took a tube and went to Parliament. It was AMAZING. I loved it. We are so fortunate that Parliament will be in session while we are here and I believe that I will actually get to go and sit in on a few sessions. But I thought that I couldn’t learn enough about history fast enough at Buckingham Palace, this was so great. Made me want to come back to the house and get a book and hop on the tube immediately. I love, love, loved it. We had a great tour guide and a really small group; our tour guide, Liz, spent lots of extra time telling us more information than she had to answering questions and making sure we got to see everything, and see it well.
It does seem like weeks ago that we visited Buckingham Palace and Parliament, but it was 2 days ago, there is so much that we did and I still have yet to tell you. Its difficult to remember it all, most places we weren’t allowed to take pictures so its all in our head and all running together.
After this we hoped on the tube again and went exploring our new home. We went up to the Tower Bridge Area. Walked around took pictures of the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, and many other things in the area. There was a part of a wall that was used by the Romans, I believe as a protection wall before people got to their fort, but I could be wrong. I do know it was used by Romans, and therefore is really old. It was a beautiful area and I look forward to spending lots of time up there. We later found a great little place for dinner, and got really cheap chicken (or fish) and chips.

For the past 2 days we have had this thing called a London Pass, where we paid some random fee for it and then we get in all these places for free. So we have been running around like crazy trying to do and see all that we could for free while we can.
On Wednesday, we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral which has been there since 604 AD, and this is where Princess Diana and Charles, Prince of Wales got married, as well as many other significant things happened here. We sat on the steps and watched the city for a while and took in our amazing surroundings. We then went in, and walked around; spend a little time in the crypt, which honestly, probably would have been much cooler if we were Catholic, we did see the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, who built St. Paul’s so that was awesome and then today on our way to another location we saw his house. After the Crypt, we made our way up 530 steps or 280 ft high. And got a great look over the city of London, as well as over the Cathedral at the whispering gallery, which was only like 400 steps up. It was incredible. Here are some pictures ...




(can anyone tell me how to rotate these so you can see them right, everything on my computer has them rotated right but its not working.)

After St. Paul’s, we made our way to the Tower of London, this time to go in. The Tower of London, built I think around 1066 by William the Conqueror, well the white tower part. This site is incredible, it has been worked on by so many different people, and has so many different parts and roles in English history. When just looking at the site itself you can easily tell that it was not all completed at one time. Some buildings look completely different from each other. It really is basically its own little city. There are some really amazing things there currently as well as the awe of how long this structure has been around and who all has been there, lived there, been tortured there, imprisoned there, etc. Currently the Tower of London is the home of the Crown Jewels, and I got to see them. We went through several times and got some very good looks at the 2 largest diamonds in the world; the largest diamond, which is 530 Carrots, it was huge, and beautiful, and amazing. You just couldn’t believe it as your went past on the moving sidewalk. There was a great exhibit on torture where we had a great discussion with an Englishman about torturing prisoners. You could also see the weapons and statues of the horses of the Kings and Queens and their armor.


After several hours at the Tower of London, we headed over to the Tower Bridge. The Tower Bridge has been there since 1894, and was one of my favorite things to just sit and look at, maybe because I actually could. We got to go up inside the tower and walk across the bridge, which gave us a magnificent view of the city of London. We also got to visit the Engine Room and see how the bridge used be drawn up and down.

I think this is long enough so I will tell you of today later, for I have to get some sleep some time.

As I look back at pictures it doesn’t seem real. We really saw all of this and experienced it and we still have weeks left to do more. I have so many more pictures but its taking so long to load them. I'm working on somewhere for those of you who don't have facebook to look at pictures and I'll let you know where that is when it happens.