This morning we started at the Museum of Natural History, and it's in a really beautiful building. We stumbled upon a side entrance, which was lucky since the lines were much shorter to get in. We took an escalator into the center of the Earth, and that wing did feel as hot as the center of the Earth! First time we've been hot since we left Texas! The rest of the museum was better, though. There's a little miniature Japanese market you can go in and experience an earthquake, which was a first for us. The rocks, gems, and minerals were pretty, and the giant sequioa really makes you want to see a live one. The dinosaur wing contained every child and pushchair in London, I think. There's a neat display on evolution and it has a lot of cool stuff.

After the museum, we headed to Trafalgar, with a stop at Boots to talk to the chemist about Gabe's headache, and get some "sachets". We started walking up Whitehall, and saw a parade coming... little did we know what we were in for. There was a huge gay pride festival, and we got trapped inside the hordes. We were on our way to tea, but didn't know if we could make it across tothe Gallery, so we grabbed a sandwich and chips from Pret, and ate them on the street while we pondered our options. Pret seems to be a favorite with us for lunch. We finally asked a bobby how to get to the Gallery, and were told to "go straight across", so we joined the parade while crossing. Wonder if anyone took our picture! We thought were out of the woods then, but again, little did we know... we still had to cross Trafalgar Square. I'm not that claustrophobic, but I was about to lose my mind in there!

We finally fought our way free and entered the National Gallery for our delicious tea! We did a mix and match so we could try everything: Toria got the full afternoon tea (cucumber, "egg mayo", smoked salmon, and roast beef finger sandwiches, a scone with cream and jam, and banoffee pie, Victoria sponge, and a chocolate cupcake with banana cream frosting), I got a "cream tea" (pot of tea, and scone with cream and jam), and Hedge got tea and crumpets. He was sad that the jam was strawberry. It was all good, but we agreed the Victoria sponge was the best. Toria got mint tea, Hedge got chamomile, and I got Builder's tea. Delicious. We also got a kick out of the pots of salt and pepper instead of shakers. Gabe enjoyed the wine goblets our water came in.

Apres le the, we strolled through British history in the National Portrait Gallery next door. We all liked the royal portraits the best, and were happy to see our old friend George Washington in there. Twas really cool to watch the changes in fashion, hair, etc., and to see the family resemblances. We learned about how an artist would make a picture and then it would circulate and other artists would just copy that instead of ever seeing the person in real life. They had several copies of some portraits hung side by side, and you could see the differences - quite interesting.

When we finished with the portraits, we hit the tube looking for Baker Street, where the "official" Beatles store is next door to the Sherlock Holmes Museum. We looked around, but it was quite crowded and expensive. They had some cool shirts and luggage though. Next stop: St. John's Wood for Abbey Road. It's a very busy road, and I imagine it would be very frustrating to live there, though it's in a beautiful neighborhood. There's no stoplight, so cars are coming at you, and people just jump into the road and strut across, sometimes freezing for photos, until the cars start honking, then they jump out of the road. We tried a few times, but you can't really recreate the picture, because there are so many people and cars coming at you.

We stopped at the Tesco for some fresh pasta and salad for supper. Hedge got another Black Sheep Ale, and I had a Hobgoblin. Pretty good stuff. We also traded back our Oyster Card, which made it hit home that we're leaving tomorrow! We've started packing, but there's still laundry in the machine, as it takes hours to run through. It's cool that it washes and dries, but it takes forever. We also will not miss the shower here. It was great having a kitchen and laundry stuff though. We leave for Paris in the morning - we have loved London, and seen a lot of awesome things!