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...