Smart Hyde Park Inn London

On the 6th I joined up with one of the great free tours. I got to see Buckhingham palace, Big Ben, Dover st (where the prime minister works), Trafalgar Square, Pall Mall, Westminster Abbey etc. Later that night Steph and I went and saw a choir service at Westminster, but it wasn't that great. The church is beautiful though.

The next day I went and saw the changing of the guard which wasn't as spectacular as I hoped it would be ...

... that fiasco its been pretty smooth sailing. Walked somewhere around 12km today and my knees are definitely feeling every kilometre of it at the moment. But i did manage to see a fair amount of London, I had lunch in Kensington Gardens, walked through Hyde Park, then went over to Piccadilly, Leicester Square and Trafalger Square (where i had a quality view of Big Ben - until it decided to start raining) and then headed home via Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, I left my camera ...

... museum, David went to Piccadilly Museum to see a museum at the Trocadero that turned out not to be there. Then he looked at mobile phones & broadband in a stretch of techy shops we found on Tottenham Court Road. Me? I wanted to look at Kings Cross Station (incidentally I found a brick wall between platforms 9 & 10 labelled as "Platform 9 3/4"). I also took some photos outside the British Library - something I didn't do last time I was in London. I then went looking ...

... our friendship, and definitely the Lord. In both of our words, this trip has been challenging, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually (does that about cover it all?!), but we are ssooo grateful for this opportunity and look forward to reflecting on these experiences for days, weeks, even years to come (blog = journal there!!). We talked about it today, how crazy it is that we began about 3 weeks ago in Greece and are wrapping up here in London ...

Into the final few weeks before departure day now & after many long hours scanning insurance smallprint and researching routes, travel forums, antimalarials etc I'm finally getting there with the planning & prep and am able to relax a little and enjoy the ...

... London"walk on the South Bank of the Thames. Well, it started off well, but soon we soon got off track and got a little lost, thanks to my sisters stellar navigational skills, but once back on track it was great! Soon our hunger pains kicked in and we stopped for supper at an outdoor cafe on the South Bank called Studio 6, and as soon as we sat down our Jet Lag set in so we headed back to the flat for an early night. All in all, we had a great first day! Stay tuned for day two!

... miles of stuff to see, read, understand... so my advice on this one is: Give yourself a few days to see the British Museum. Not just because it's so big or because of the fact that all museums in Great Britain are free... but because if you are like me and have just a touch of ADD, after 2 hrs of constant walking and reading your eyes glaze over and you stop paying attention! Definitely the high point of this place is the Rosetta Stone. Without this little treasure we ...

... had called us her "home slices" and coming from a 5 foot tall skinny white girl that sounds HYSTERICAL. So then we were ********ting back and forth and Chantay said, "Giiiirrrrrrrrrrlllll....I'm the WHOLE loaf..." and Cari laughed and said, "and Monique is half a loaf" (a few slices short of a whole). We were DYING.

So we are now known as white bread, multi-grain, Challah and half-loaf. We make for a very starchy flat.

Alas...I woke up thursday morning sick. :(
London, United Kingdom lenabena