Pinkies in the air and wave them like you just don't care!

We had a blast yesterday.

We started out very early (and very cold) on Portobello Road the famous open-air market. Only someone forgot to tell the merchants to show up. It was a pretty seedy part of town, but as luck would have it, I found a pretty sweet pair of shoes--on sale!

But believe it or not, that wasn't the pinnicle of our day.

Our next stop was Imperial College of London. Tim was accepted to grad school here, but since it costs about a gazillion U.S. dollars to attend and no funding was available, so he took a pass. But we stopped by and got him an Imperial t-shirt and got a mug shot in front of the school.

On our way to the art museum, we walked passed the Victoria and Albert Museum, which easily takes up several city blocks. Tim summed it up by saying, "I realize she inspired an era, but how much crap could one old lady want to show?" Needless to say, we didn't go in.

I'm always in awe of European art museums. On our walking tour of the National Gallery, we saw DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Bottacelli, Reubens, Monet, Manet, Titian, Van Gogh...They were all breathtaking.

But I think the highlight of my day was taking afternoon tea at the National Gallery.

You start out with an entire pot of tea just for yourself. Then, you get a three-tiered plate. On the bottom tier are sandwiches: ham, cheese and spicy mustard; cucumber and cream cheese, and finally egg salad with sprouts. The middle tier had a warm scone and clotted cream (which looks just like butter but doesn't have much flavor). And the top tier had a variety of cakes. We were stuffed!

After tea, we did a West End walk through Soho and the red light district--"Models" on the second floor, come on up! We ended the night on the crazy Picadilly Circus (think almost Time Square) and in Waterstone's the largest book store in Europe.

We're on our way to get a snack and then to the Tower of London to see the crown jewels. Then some shopping and finally packing.

This will probably be my last post, unless we can get to a Internet cafe tonight. Thanks for reading and commenting. I hope you've had as much fun as we have.

Cheerio!

The Ceremony of the Keys...yawn

Sorry for not posting yesterday. We were a whirlwind of tourism all over London and by the time we got to the nice Internet cafe (the one I have been using is pretty questionable--this one isn't much better), the machine to buy computer minutes was broken.

So, you need to know about the Ceremony of the Keys. It's the oldest military ceremony in the world; it dates back 700 years. At exactly 9:55:30, the Key Chap leaves his office, grabs a military escort and locks all the doors to the Tower of London. The whole ceremony takes six minutes to complete and is done with serious precision.

We would not recommend going to it (you need to write for tickets at least two months in advance, but the good thing is, they're free) unless you have a keen interest in military ceremonies and standing on cobblestones at 10 p.m. freezing your royal rump off.

Funny thing about the ceremony, is they go through the same scripting every night. One guard (a real soldier in real uniform carrying a real machine gun) says, "Halt! Who goes there?"

"The keys," says the Key Chap.

"Whose keys?" says the rather intelligent lad with the machine gun.

"Queen Elizabeth's keys." Is the unspecific answer.

It's not like these people are fooling anyone. We all know they were just at the pub having a few pints together and now they're acting like this is a brand-new situation. The same brand-new situation they've been acting out for the past 700 years.

I guess that's kind of harsh. Maybe it would be more enjoyable if it were warmer. I can appreciate the precision, though. Just as the bell tower was striking 10 p.m., they were finishing up they're song-and-dance.

Just like every other night.

Sorry, no photos allowed of the Ceremony.

Holy cow! What weather!

We just read Yahoo! news that Detroit got pounded with snow. How bad is it?

Maybe we don't want to come home at all. That would mean we'd have to shovel...

A chilly day in Londontown

It's pretty nippy here today. The air temperature isn't so bad, but the wind is whipping out of the North Sea and freezing our ears off.

We didn't start off the day on a very good foot. Well, I didn't anyway. About 15 minutes before our alarm went off, something got blown off the bathroom window sill. It was a great calamity. But, not enough to get either of us out of bed.

Fifteen minutes later, I got up to take a shower. Lo and behold there was my make-up bag sunk in the toilet. Now, I realize I was charmed by the Scottish rain. Not so much about English toilet water. From here on out, you'll just have to get used to me in photos with my baby-fresh face.

But my morning significantly improved while I was watching London's version of the Today show. A story came on about a woman who "was saved by a giant pair of knickers." Intrigued, I sat down to watch. Apparently, a woman was cooking when her frying pan caught on fire. Grabbing whatever laundry she had nearby, she smothered the fire. Not much of a story, right? Wrong. The reporter said the woman was save by her "huge size 20 knickers." And on the screen flashes the woman, semi-toothless, holding her smoke-stained panties up for all of London to see.

My jaw was on the floor. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry for the woman. Here's the reporter, in her kitchen exclaiming at the GIGANTIC SIZE OF HER KNICKERS. And there she is glowing in her 15 minutes of fame. How this qualifies as news--"Woman puts out fire with her Jockey's"--I have no idea. But it made me laugh.

When we finally made it out, we headed right for the British Museum and walked through about 2,000 years of history. We saw:

A colossal image of Rameses II (Moses' arch-enemy, a man mummified in the dessert sands about 5,400 years ago. His name is Ginger. No joke.

We also saw the sculpture from the Parthenon. Yes, THE Parthenon. It truly is amazing what you see when you travel. Our Scottish tour guide in the Highlands said Chinese people take pictures of sheep, Europeans take pictures of cows, but Americans take pictures of anything old. Anything at all. ANd I'm sure it's because we really don't have anything old in our country.

The rest of today was spent looking for the London branch of Tim's Mecca: Cadenhead's Whisky Shop. After leaving Edinburgh, he decided he wanted a sample of whisky from each Cadenhead's we find. So, away we went. After that, we stopped in at Twining's tea shoppe again for a little more retail therapy.

Twining's is in the neighborhood of Temple Church of The DaVinci Code fame. Man, that church is fickle. We can't catch it open at all. We might be able to try again tomorrow, but we'll see.

Well, we're off to Harrod's now. And then the Ceremony of the Keys tonight. The ceremony is the way the guards have been locking up the Tower of London for more than 700 years.

Tomorrow, Portobello Road, Imperial College and the Tower of London (for the Crown Jewels) is in the plan. The sun is out right now, so we best enjoy it while we can.

I stepped on dead people

Whew! What a ride!

London is non-stop (except on holidays--then it's a grinding halt), mad rush, swarmed historic blob of amazement. We just realized we only have three days left and we have no idea how to fit it all in. So much for a day trip to Bath. I suppose we'll have to come back.

It took us quite some time to find our little apartment. The roads here greatly resemble Rome--on minute you're walking on Smith Street. The next it's a different name and you're lost. But it keeps us on our toes.

The first full day we had in London seemed to be a day of accidental tourism. We purposefully found Big Ben (not the clock or the tower, but the bell that tolls the hour), Parliment, Churchill's Cabinet War Rooms (fantastic! It's where CHurchill and his eight best friends ran WWII), Trafalgar Square, St. Paul's Cathedral (think Mary Poppins--"and each day, to the steps of St. Paul's the little old bird woman comes") and climbed the dome (huff and puff), Twining's Tea Company. Then everything was closing because of New Year's Eve, so we made dinner at the apartment and headed out into the madness.

NYE in London was an experience. We went to Big Ben again, because there was a huge fireworks display, but realized if we didn't get out of the area, we would be shut in with all the mad Brits partying like it's 1999 (they were fascinated with whistles--FWEET, FWEET! So, we took the longest walk in history--from Big Ben back to our place in Chelsea because the Tube and all the buses stopped running. We thought we'd stop at a pub and drink in the New Year, but oddly enough, the pubs all closed at the ungodly hour of 9 p.m. I guess bartenders need to let their hair down, too.

We didn't end up getting back to the apartment until about 11:30 and found a bunch of 14-year-olds laying around in the lobby listening to loud music and generally thinking they look cool. Not sure why they thought that.

This morning brought Westminster Abby. What a place! I've never seen so many famous dead people in one place. Queen Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Henry VII, Charles Dickens, Geoffry Chaucer, Handel (think: Messiah), Edward the Confessor (the same chap from Braveheart who was the evil king). Not to mention the beauty of the place. We brought our lunch along with us and sat near the cloisters and ate it. Can you imagine? We had a picnic inside Westminster Abbey. As we were leaving, there was a parade for New Year's just outside. In celebration, special bell ringers were in the abbey, making the most beautiful music from the towers that I've ever heard. It was like a movie.

The bells could be heard through St. James's Park as we made our way to Buckingham Palace. In the park, we saw the saddest thing. There's birds in the lake--pelicans, which are HUGE (at least up to my shoulder). One pelican made his way to the pedestrian bridge and was immediately surrounded by picture-happy tourists. Poor fella couldn't get out of the paparazzi.

After that, we scratched my Harry Potter itch and found Platform 9 3/4 as well as the place where Hagrid tells Harry, "Stick to your ticket, Harry." We went to find the Magna Carta, but apparently, it needs a holiday. We'll try again soon.

So, tomorrow we go to the British Museum, Temple Church (from the DaVinci Code), and to a concert at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

Keep watching. We're loving the comments!

P.S. Sorry about no photos. This was an impromptu stop. We were lucky to find this place. Internet cafes are hard to come by around here.