London blokes

---

Well, after 15hrs and 3944 miles of flying, 3 trains, and a taxi ride we finally made it to our hotel. lol I have never been so happy to arrive at a destination. We ended having to take an extra train because "someone" thought that they were on the right one.... we won't discuss that right now though. The hotel is the cat's meow. We did have to ask for a room with two beds though. One double bed is just not enough, so now we have two twin beds.

So far mom is surviving the trip but I think that she will either arrive home sore and beat up or just sick. It is definately colder here than I expected. After we arrived at the hotel and unpacked all of our stuff we hit the street to check out some sights. We are litterally about 300yrds down the street to Buckingham Palace and The Mall. We walked down there and took pictures of the palace, the statue of Queen Victoria, St. James Park, the tourists, etc. and then headed down towards Victoria tower and Big Ben. By the time that we got down to Parliment it was getting dark so we got some pretty cool pictures of the towers lit up. We also walked across the Thames River and took pictures of Parliment and the London Eye (the world's largest ferris wheel). It was amazing how many people were out doing the same things that we were. I did notice though that unlike a trip to Washington D.C., the people that live here actually visit the sights as well. On my two trips to D.C. I felt like I was the only american there. Here, I would swear that I have seen every nationality. New Year's Eve is definately going to be packed and unbelieveable.

We ended up walking back towards our hotel by a different route looking for something to eat. We decided to eat at a pub called Strutton Arms about 2.5 blocks from our hotel that was pretty good. I was a little disappointed though because the majority of the food was of an american flavor, e.g.

southern fried chicken

. I did have a Guiness and some Fish and Chips and was throughly satified. Tomorrow we'll hit the major sights of the city such as: Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral,

Trafalgar Square, etc.

---

Photos

Buckingham Palace
Periodic residence of the queen.

Parliment
Parliment from across the Thames.

Victoria Tower
More commonly known as Big Ben, although that is really the bell within the tower.

Strutton Arms
The "americanized" pub that we ate at. We'll have to look harder for a real british pub.