London, UK 2014 Wrap Up

Europe.  Here at last.  While Europe seems to be the most common site for international travel –  as well as most peoples’ first intercontinental destination, we seemingly traversed the rest of the globe before making it to Europe.  Alyce had really been wanting to go to Europe, and I was excited about it too.  Our first stop – London.

London…Easy to figure this one out.  It’s the capital of the country England.  But wait, what about the United Kingdom?    Or Great Britain – where does that factor in?

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London, UK In Pictures

With the nasty weather in London, I didn’t bring my big camera out with us everyday.  Also, with the ridiculously expensive public transportation (combined with the weather), I didn’t spend any nights out exploring with my tripod (cf. Paris).  So everything we took in London was just hand held, walking around.  It still gives you a pretty good idea of what we saw.

See the link below for all the pictures, and scroll down for some selected shots:

http://justinandalyce.smugmug.com/Other/London-2014/36291193_DMrqZt#!i=3040579811&k=9RQnVMT

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Sunshine in London

Sunshine in LondonWell…..it was still raining when we woke up, but by about 10am, we could see blue skies and the sun peaking through the clouds. Yea!On today’s agenda was Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and the Parliament building.  The walk wasn’t too bad……maybe a couple of miles.

The buildings are all so beautiful and old.  We took tons of pictures! We didn’t go in Westminster Abbey (it would have cost about 70$).  They certainly don’t give anything away in London!

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Next, we walked to the palace.  By this point I was getting pretty tired. We stopped by the fountain across the street from the palace and rested for a while. Poor Justin. I’m sure that he gets tired of me fussing about how exhausted/thirsty I am! My short legs have trouble keeping up with him!

Buckingham Palace is very impressive, but you aren’t allowed to go inside. (No mom, the Queen Mother was not outside walking all of her corgis! I was disappointed too!)

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We took some pictures, then headed to the Queen’s Shop to get a couple of souvenirs.

After than we walked back to the hotel, and I took about a 2.5 hour nap! Then, we got dressed for dinner and went to the club lounge for drinks and snacks. It was Asian night in the lounge. Sushi, yum!

For dinner, we ate at Corrigan’s.  Luckily, it wasn’t too far, and we could avoid the ridiculous taxi prices.  Unfortunately, it started to rain again. Boo!

The restaurant was very nice. We split the pressed duck liver appetizer.  It was delicious and my favorite dish of the night. Justin had beef shin with tenderloin and marrow for his entree.  I had the pork belly special.  They were good.  I think Justin’s was better. Either way, we enjoyed our last night in London.

Tomorrow, we leave for Paris.  It is about an hour flight. Looking forward to experiencing a new city!

Cheerio!

London…….Finally!

London……Finally!It was our first full day in London, and we were excited to get out there and explore the city. Unfortunately, the weather was less than desirable.  The forecast showed that it was going to rain on and off all day. Oh well.  We had a nice breakfast in the club lounge, grabbed our rain gear, and hit the streets.First, we walked to the British Museum.  I’m pretty sure that every other tourist in London had the same idea.  It was packed! We caught a glimpse of the Rosetta Stone over the heads of many people taking pictures and looked at the many Greek artifacts.  I was amazed at how many pieces of Ancient Greece are housed in London.  Apparently, it’s a controversial story about how all the artifacts were obtained.DSC00359

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