Gobsmacking!!

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So I must start off by saying, in London we had a gobsmacking good time!! Our tour director Joel kept saying "your about to have another gobsmacking moment. Do you say gobsmacking in America?" "No," we all said, but its a cute word anyway, which I have adopted into my vocabulary. :-)

Today, was not as cold as yesterday, thank goodness, I have been freezing! Today we didn't know it was Mothers Day, or "Mum's Day" until we went down to the resturant for breakfast. The breakfast is pretty good at the hotel, eggs, bacon, toast, cereal, the usual.

We met at 9am for our first three hour bus tour. Today we had a different tour guide and not Joel, his name was Keith, and he did an excellent job driving us around telling us all about the history of London. The first stop was St. Pauls' Cathedral. Beautiful, beautiful church. We could hear the chimming of the bells and I filmed a short 15 second video capturing the sounds of the bells. We could not go in the church because it is Sunday and they were having mass.

Our second stop was a cute area called Covent Garden. I loved it, we saw some people playing a string quartet when I decided to film another quick video. This area had alot of ourside cafe's, markets, and shops.

Afterwards we were back on the bus and drove around to look at some other areas including Trafalgar square and Picadilly Circus, and then we were dropped off to go see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. Hords of people everywhere, but I loved it. We got a bit lost for a few minuets during the mass of tourists, but luckily after a few minuets we were able to locate Keith. After that we boarded the coach one last time and were dropped off at the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The coach was going to continue on to Windsor Castle, an optional excursion which Jay and I did not pay for. We were looking forward to exploring a bit of the city on our own. Joel met up with us and helped answer any questions we had about anything. Jay and I hoped on the #24 bus to go to the British Museum (free!) Joel even let us borrow 3 pounds (since all we had were bills, or "notes") and he hopped on the bus with us to show us exactly which stop to get off on, which we were both surprised, he didnt have to ride it with us, but it sure helped.

The British Museum has an amazing ceiling, and one of the first things we decided to do was eat lunch at their food court. I got some sour mushroom soup and a soda for maybe 5 pounds (not too bad) And right as we were ready to tour the museum....my CAMERA BATTERY DIED!! I never bought a spare battery which was suggested to me by a friend. Luckily I had our "backup" which was the disposable camera I brought along. We saw some Egyptian mummies in the museum and also some Moai statues. (the statues on Easter Island) I think those Moai statues are pretty amazing, I was lucky enough to see one at the Smithsonian Museum just a few months ago in Washington DC. We also saw some Roman/Greek artifacts as well.

Afterwards we walked to Trafalgar Square. Such a pretty area with large fountains, street performers and right in front of the National Gallery of Art, which was our next stop (also free!) I was freezing from the walk and there was a coffee shop in the square and I ordered two hot cocoas and Jay and I sat on the stairs leading up to the museum and sipped the hot cocoa. All the while I kept saying dorky things like, "I can't believe we are on our trip!" and I kept making dorky references to the Chevy Chase National Lampoons movie. (I know, DORK!!)

I loved the museum, we saw paintings by Botticelli, Raphael, a few Da Vinci's and my favorite : Van Gogh's sunflower painting.

After the museum we walked all the way back to the Houses of Parliament so I could take some more pictures (with my disposable of course), we walked over the bridge over the River Thames and walked past the London Eye, no we did not take a "flight" in it, because I was too scared to go! I kept imagining those little pods that you go ingoThe price was something like 16 pounds. It is massive! Around that area were many street performers as well. After more walking we caught the #15 bus to go back to our hotel, I went upstairs and took a quick hour nap then we got up and went to eat at a nearby resturant in a building called the "Dickens Inn"

So far so good, I love London!!

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Photos

Jay
Jay : "what are we going to do today?"

London
I was trying to take a picture of the "London Underground" sign

St. Pauls
I think this was my favorite!!

St Pauls
Jay in front of St Pauls Cathedral

Covent Garden
right outside the cute Covent Garden area

Covent Garden
See how cute this is!!

Covent Garden
there you go.

Covent Garden
The entrance way

pub
Cute little pub

bus
this was taken out the bus window

bus
another one out the bus window

Spamalot
Where Spamalot is performed.

Spamalot
I was trying to get the bus in the pic