London Calling

Hey all. Bad news. Apparently the men in red coats and silly hats only appear once every two days for an hour so I'm going to have to break the promise of the photos with them. To compensate, here is a photo of me and some bag pipe playing fellow in front of Big Ben. 

Is he winking or just sad? 

Don't worry, I threw twenty pence (or zero pound twenty) in his bag pipe case for reimbursement of this soon to be facebook profile picture. 

Obligatory self portrait with blurry international landmark in the background

 Other than the disappointment of missing the guards, it was an extremely successful day. After we left the eye area there was a short walk on/across (see droopy eyed bag pipe man photo) the river with plenty of little shops, cafes and the like.

Belgian Waffles in England?

We went over to Big Ben and Parliament buildings where it seemed like every fifteen feet there were people cooking peanuts on the sidewalk. As much as we were tempted, again we maintained our Eurosaver mentality and shuffled along. 

These are some, but not all, of the accomplishments of day:

• Big Ben
• Parliament
• London Eye
• London Tower
• London Bridge
• Red Telephone Booths
• Trafalgar Square
• Buckingham Palace
• Westminster Abbey
• Some crazy London version of Subway where they make burritos called "Chipotle"
• Piccadilly Circus (I was told I needed to include my "Hallie" moment of the day where I asked if a piccadillo was a type of flute...)
• Hyde Park
• Harrod's
• St. James Park
• Winter Wonderland Park
• Local Pubs
• Double Decker Bus Ride

The tele! Wait, the tele is the tube... and the tube is the subway? Ahh!

After all our walking around through palaces, parks, squares and circii (London plural for circus), the signature London rain hit us. Of course Hallie made like a tourist and ran to the nearest souvenir shop to buy an umbrella made out of the local country's flag. 

This was left in a bathroom 15 minutes later

 The rain was getting a little too much after awhile so we hopped into a local pub where we had some beers and almost passed out due to exhaustion from the ambitious day. The subways have luckily been on strike for the last two days so we had a chance to have our first double decker bus ride. This is where we passed out. Fortunately our stop was the last one of the line!

Serious contemplation over Fish and Chips

Plans for the next day include more fish and chips and hopping on a frightening journey underneath the English Channel for 2.5 hours to Paris.  Catch up with you all in France!!