Dropping Pounds...

Court and I just got back from London! We were there 4 nights and loved every minute of it..

A little rain on day one and 4, but not much.. Days 2 and 3 were bright and sunny!

We took the train to london, and went through the famous "Chunnel." It only took about 2 and a half hours to get from Paris to London...  We love trains..  SO much better than flying!

Our first day in London, we settled in at our hotel, and went to HARRODS. We took a cab. Funny note; on our cab ride from the train station to the hotel, I asked about the underground, and the cab driver said "You want to avoid the underground. Dangerous down there.. all druggies and people junked up to their eyeballs!"  This stuck with me, and every time I have seen someone do anything even remotely strange since, I tell courtney "I think that person is junked up to their eyeballs!" I'm 70% sure that it's still funny.

Harrods is the most amazing store I have ever been in. You can literally buy anything there. The layout of the store is very "I didnt know I needed that, until NOW!"  For example, you can walk through lingerie, and end up in stainless steel appliances. Then,  you suddenly find yourself in the fossil and mineral collection. So within 5 minutes of walking, you have a bra, blender, and baby brachiosaurus.  

After Harrods, we took the cab to the SOHO area and just walked around. It's a very cool area..  Almost too cool. We sat in a pub and then went to a movie screening at FOX that we were invited to! 

Day two started off rocky, as we got almost NO sleep, because the floor of the room above us was really really squeeky. We rallied however and went right to the TOWER OF LONDON. We took the underground, dismissing all previous warning. Actually, It is really really nice.. Much nicer even than the Paris underground! We spent a few hours at the TOWER, going into all the rooms and exhibits (except the torture room exhibit.. it was closed for one day for painting). After that, we hopped the underground and went to the Natural History Museum! This museum is AMAZING...  The nice thing about London is that all the museums are free, with the exception of some having to pay for special exhibitions. The natural history museum has full dinosaur skeletons, an amazing room of life size animal sculptures, dominated by a life size blue whale, and tons of other things that we didnt even get a chance to see!!

One of the coolest things there was a life size animatronic T-Rex... This was amazing...

After the museum we went back to our hotel and changed rooms.. (We got a top floor room this time) which was great, but there are no elevators in the hotel, so we ended up having to walk up and down 5 flights of stairs every time!

That night, we went to the Picadilly Circus area  and saw a play called "The 39 Steps," based on the Hitchcock film! Picadilly is the broadway of London (and a fun place to say!), and that play is a london exclusive for now, so that was a real treat! Afterwards we treated ourselves to some ciders and went home!

Day 3 started us out at the "Time Out London" photo exhibit called "London through the lens." A bunch of photos of London taken in that last 80 years! It was pretty interesting! After that, we went on an english language tour of THE ROYAL BRITISH MUSEUM. That museum is amazing. Some of the highlights of their collection are the Rosetta Stone, and the actual mummy of Cleopatra!! They also have most of the remains of the Pantheon from Greece.

We stayed at the Royal Museum for about 3 and a half hours  (I wanted to see more of the mummies) and then took the underground  (after a few more ciders) to meet up with my friend Nikki, who has lived in London for 3 years! We met for dinner at 7, and didnt end up leaving until almost 11:30! Court and I got pork belly for dinner. Adventurous palates!

Day 4 was kind of muggy! At first, we tried to go to a street fair C had heard about. Fair enough, but the underground dropped us off in the ghetto. That was the fastest street fair viewing of our lives.

Afterwards, Court wanted to spend some time in a store called TOP SHOP. It's hard to explain, but its like a huge combo of H & M and Nordstroms... But apparently, according to C, "Such a nice shoe department that I could have closed my eyes and pointed to a pair, and been happy with them." I spent an hour sitting in borders.. haha.. My feet were killing that day! After Top Shop we decided that we HAD to see Buckingham Palace.. So we hopped over in the underground and checked it out! As cool as the palace was, we actually really were most fascinated by the parks surrounding it. The leaves are all yellow and red and falling. It was very pretty.

Next stop, was the V & A (Vistoria and Albert museum) This museum is a mish mash. 12th century greek sculpture next to 1950's plastic Jewelry. LOTS to look at. C and I spent most of our time in the fashion museum and jewelry exhibition!

On our last night there, we decided to do the most touristy London thing of all, and go on the JACK THE RIPPER walk of London. It was dark, rainy and cold.. We figured it would be a small crowd.. and apparently it was, but it was still well over 100 people! C really didnt want to do this, but afterwards she said she was glad she did! 

The next day we hopped the train back home! It was a fast trip, and we saw a ton of stuff!! We really fell in love with London, and we think it may even rival Paris as our favorite city now!!

Here are a few pics...  Again, out of chronological order!!

This is the tower of London...  We met across the street from it for the RIPPER tour!

I waited for that double decker to get into frame before taking the shot... for added authenticity.
Courtney in shock at how much she loves London.
Buckingham Palace.

"I like city hall in San Francisco better."

-Courtney Ward, 2008
A.A. driving school? Sign us up!
Harrods at night. It's like "It's a small world." only with better music.
The "Full Size Animals" exhibit at the Nat. history museum. 

Another 'fun' thing at the museum is a scale, that tells you how many of you it takes to weigh the same as an animal. C still takes pride in the fact that it takes 400 more of me than her to be a blue whale
Cleopatra's mummy. I thought this would be a HUGE attraction, but really not many people were checking it out. For one, tour groups cant stop and talk in the mummy exhibit, so maybe that's why..
The egyptian section of the rosetta stone. People FLOCKED to this thing. 

Rock - shoulders crunched by people to get a glimpse crowd.

Cleopatra - Only crowded because it was an out of the way place to scold your kid.

unfair.
C playing with leaves in the park. We kept doing this until we go the "perfect" shot. Then other people around us started copying our idea and taking their own 'throw leaves in the air' photos.

This infuriated Courtney!!! "That 7 year old took my idea!!"   The Nerve!!!
Outside of the Natural History Museum. It was a perfect night!
Christmas Card 08. Watch for it soon in your mailbox!
This is a really cute little church in the 'white tower' in the TOWER OF LONDON. You actually had to remove your hat before entering!
Cute photo of C. This was a really narrow winding staircase!
An actual honest-to-God beheading block and axe. Kinda gross, but fascinating. I took 3 pictures of it, and I think that gave Courtney 3 reasons to want to break up with me.
"Hey Court, how do you really feel about the arms and armour exhibit?"

One of the royal guards at the Tower. We were there on armistice day, and there was a 2 minute moment of silence at 11 am.
The last photo we took in London. We need to grow up.