LONDON BABY!!!!

Well folks as promised finally a post with lots of pictures!!! We spent our second weekend in England in London. It was a spur of the moment decision to go...how crazy is that, we were able to go to London on a whim for a weekend getaway! Who does that...that's right we do! A friend of Brandon's from high school is now living in London (what a small world) and we were able to stay with them, which made it nice for us, plus it was a major cost saver! We got up at 4:00a.m. to catch the shuttle bus from base to the London Heathrow Air Port...for free. So basically all we had to pay for on this trip was the cost of a weekend pass on the Tube (or subway those from the States) and food! It was great :) The only unfortunate part of the weekend was the weather. Saturday it rained ALL day...not the usual light mist, but rain! Also it was cold, but we bundled up and after a few pep talks from Brandon I was able to look past the crappy weather and truly enjoy my weekend with my husband! So day one, we met up with Brandon's friend and her boyfriend, and went to lunch. Then we picked up a cheap map of London, they pointed out the Tube lines, and we were off :) We started out near the London Bridge and made went from there.



Near the London Bridge was the London Tower, we opted out of the guided tour due to the big crowd of people and wanting to get started so we could see as much of London as possible in 2 days. It was pretty cool seeing all the armor worn by soldiers, and all the cool details from, the crown jewels, to the torture chambers used in ancient times.


(the above picture is the building to see the crown jewels)
There also were these metal sculptures all over the place depicting guards of the tower.



In a few places around the tower there were guards posted, unfortunately they were not in the traditional Beef Eater uniforms, but they still were unmoving and straight faced no matter what! Also I was sad that you couldn't get very close to get a picture with the Beef Eaters.



An interesting thing we learned is that these soldiers that work at the tower also live at the tower. They have housing (shown below) and a pub, and a place to eat all within the walls of the tower! wow hardcore but pretty darn cool!




The last picture I have chosen to post may seem random, but for some reason I really liked it, and heck with my love for bathroom humor it really isn't that surprising after all!!!



After leaving the tower, we decided to hoof it to the other attractions, like Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. There was a tube line that could have taken us to it, but we thought it would be nice to see everything along the way. Plus on the little map we had it didn't seem that far. Yeah so, it turned out to be a pretty long trek and I thought my feet were going to literally fall off! Oh well after it was all said and done it was worth it :) Along the way I was able to get a few pictures, and there were street performers/people statue things...it was pretty cool. It made me think of the robot scene in Euro Trip! He He Also along the way was the London Eye, which we would have liked to see but by the time we would have been done it would have been dark and we couldn't have made it to see the other sites up close, not to mention the rain/mist/fog was so dense you really wouldn't have been able to see much!

Below is a shot we took along out LONG walk...



We finally made it to Big Ben, and thankfully Westminster Abbey is just around the corner from Big Ben and Parliament! Not so fortunately for us they had closed Westminster Abbey for tour/viewing before we got there (like 30 minutes before) but it was still cool to see it and all the other historical buildings surrounding the area!









Well that was about it for our first day. We limped our way back to the tube, and made a stop for a true gourmet meal a Burger King...don't judge we were so hungry it seemed like the greatest meal EVER! We then walked back to Nicole's flat and settled in for the night.

Day 2 in London was much shorter than day 1, the shuttle back to base left at noon so we had to be back at the air port by that time. The last thing on our list of must see's way Buckingham Palace, so we ate an early breakfast and hit the road! It was a short tube ride to Buckingham Palace, and from there a hop, skip, and a jump to the air port! OK so I won't lie I was a bit disappointed in Buckingham Palace. The guards were yet again wearing their daily uniform, not the cool red ones you think of when you think of Buckingham Palace guards. Also it just wasn't as ornate or pretty of a palace as I was expecting. Not sure what I thought it would look like, but I definitely thought there would be pretty gardens, and other decorative touches that were not there. I think I was thinking castle not palace, but it was still pretty cool to see the palace!!