More about Europe

April 30th
On Wednesday we woke to a then novel breakfast of toast and juice. We felt pretty good and set off with a full agenda of sightseeing and fun. Taking the advice of my dad, we boarded a bus tour which proved to be a very good idea. It was fun to hear random facts about the surrounding buildings. It seems like every square foot of London has a notable history. It all seemed so old and cool I probably took a hundred pictures of random buildings just because they looked so old. Unfortunately, the weather was spotty and we have sun mixed with down throughout the day. We took the train into the heart of London and drove by Buckingham palace, Big Ben, Hyde Park, and a million other places. We decided to get off at Parliament square and see the Churchill War a museum and secret cabinet rooms. This was a really cool experience and I learned so much about Churchill and the war. It is crazy to me that they hid the national leader in a spartan bomb shelter to conduct the business of the war. It really hit home what a big deal the war was to England especially when they were bombed constantly. It was apparent that everyone, even the leaders were nervous about a German invasion. How scary.
Next we set off to see the current parliament in session in the ancient House of Commons. The building was gorgeous and I could not believe the amount of stained glass, sculpted stone, and rich tapestries. The actually parliament was rather boring. They were discussing some energy bill or something and everyone looked like they were going to fall asleep. We then hopped back on the bus and went around the rest of London. We saw everything along the Thames and got off at the Tower of London for a river tour. The guide was pretty entertaining even though there wasn't much to see. After the boat we tried to take the bus back to our hotel, but there was not a close stop. It was raining pretty bad and Tim and I wandered around the streets trying to get home. Tim was a great navigator, but the rain and lack of sleep made the trek rather trying. That night we crashed and didn't even stir when the crazy drunk guys at the local pub cheered their local football team on to victory.

NOTE: All the pictures from this day are on our 1st memory card which we cannot get to read. I am going to see if someone at a photo shop can get the pics onto a cd. If that works I will post the pics ASAP!