Started this morning off feeling extra tired. I set my alarm for 8:30am (which
is 3:30 am our time zone). I slept excellently thanks to my cool pillow that
compacts and my silk hostel sheet on top of an extra mattress that Jim (the
apartment complex manager) lent to us. After showering, I woke up Meredith and
we got ready to head out to London :)

Initially we were going to go to the market before heading into the city, but we
still don't know our way around Dawn's neighborhood so we hoped on the tube and
headed into the city. Dawn gave us directions on how to do the major
attractions by ourselves, and just bought some fruit for 80 pence (which is the
plural word for pennies :D) So after making it into the city, we got on the
Underground and headed towards Westminster.

Feeling a little too confident about our knowledge of the Underground (plus
being SO tired) ... Meredith and I got on the wrong metro. However we quickly
recovered and got headed back in the right directions.

After getting off at Westminster, we walked around River Thames over to the Eye
of London (which looks like a big ferris wheel)... On the bridge over there a
couple stopped us to take pictures of them, and then the returned the favor, so
Meredith have a picture together! Which I think will be pretty rare on this
trip, seeing how there are only two of us.

The bridge have us an excellent view of the river, Big Ben & Parliament, so we
opted not to ride on the Eye of London and just walked around. There was a lot
of street performers! Like a guy standing in an old Micky Mouse costume? Or as a
Bart Simpson superhero? We stopped to watch a guy who was a dancer, but turned
out not to be very good ... at all.

We continued down the river, and continued to take in the magnificent views.
Big Ben and Parliament are just captivating. I have grown up seeing pictures of
Big Ben but pictures and film, don't do it justice. We continued on and the
next stop was Westminster Abby. Equally as beautiful, Westminster Abby was
breathtaking. The architecture is just so detailed, unlike anything we have
back in the United States. We decided not to go into Westminster Abby because
it was 15 pound. Which is a little too expensive for Meredith and I :) So we
just opted for pictures, which are the best souvenirs anyways.

After Westminster Abby the next stop was Buckingham Palace. We walked through
St. James Park. The Park was beautiful, it isn't super landscaped but it was
almost like magical looking with overgrown trees and wild flowers with the lake
(complete with Swans) in the middle. The Park leads right to the Buckingham
Palace. We didn't really care to wait around for the changing of the guards,
but we got some good pictures. Buckingham Palace was pretty but didn't really
compare to Big Ben or Westminster Abby. The gates are very pretty and
extravagant but the Palace itself was pretty simple.

We walked around the Palace and just kept walking (we figured it had to lead
back to the front) ... and luckily we were right. We ended up in Green Park
which is just to the side of Buckingham Palace and got a baguette and laid down
in the grass. By this time I had a massive headache, but luckily food cured it
(as it does to most of life's problems) ... We decided that we had seen enough
for the day, so we took the metro back to Liverpool station and took the tube
out to Dawn's neighborhood

It was one of Dawn's co-workers going away parties at Outback (yes the same one
as in the states) ... So Meredith and I tagged alone just to meet everyone. It
turned out to be a lot of fun, Dawn (who turned 25 day! yay!) and her coworkers
were going into London to go out, but Meredith and I were too tired and not
adjusted to the time change, so two of Dawn's co workers took Meredith and I
back to the apartments. So here we are another day down, lots more to go :)

Tomorrow the weather forecast calls for rain (and I was completely hoping we
would beat the odds and escape London rain-free) ... so we don't have set plans.
Dawn was talking about heading out to a market but we will see :)

-brooke.