London Calling

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We spent the last 3 days running through the old city (London) and the new city (Westminster). Thank goodness we had great guides. If you're ever in London, try the free walking tour. An amazing afternoon walking through Westminster area: Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and the Parliament. Our guide was terrific and he gave us all the gossip everywhere we went. Perfect way to see London. Our next tour day was more old city: Tower of London, St Paul's Cathedral (beautiful), Convent Garden, River cruise and finishing with the London Eye (130 metres in the air). Long day.

Today we slept later, ate lunch at the hotel and headed out to wander a bit. Arne wanted to find a building he saw from the Thames. And we did - last stop. We were on the Tower Bridge and were lucky enough to have a large ship going through. The traffic stops in both directions and everything gets very quiet. Then the middle splits and lifts. The bridge was only open about 8 minutes.

Our feet and legs are tired but we're off again this evening to meet up with Arne's cousin Robin and his daughter Benedicte. We're having lunch at an Italian place in Notting Hill. Very exciting. This is the last Norwegian cousin to meet up with before we take off for Scotland. In the morning, we check out of the hotel, pick up our rental car and start driving on the "wrong" side of the road! Good luck.

It will be harder to keep updates coming in Scotland as we're practically in a new place each night. Here's the plan: Aug 2nd, Gretna Green; Aug 3rd, Glasgow; Aug 4th Fort William; Aug 5th, Kyle of Lochalsh; Aug 6th/7th Inverness; Aug 8th, Aberdeen; Aug 9th/10th, Edinburgh. August 11th we fly from Edinbugh to London and then London home.

Talk to everyone soon.

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