Make it count

Thursday, July 3rd

Abigail's Graduation Trip - Day #7

Full day in London today. All good stuff. I do have to say the the allergy level must be at an all-time high --- a couple of us have had some struggles . Nothing a Claritin can't fix. All better now.

We started off the day a little bit later than we normally do. Keith and Kelly hit the grocery store to stock up the flat for the week. The rest of the crew slept in, and we hit the road about 12 o'clock. Right off the bat we hit a small dilema - Abigail's flip flop broke unexpectedly at the tube station. Keith ran back to the flat for a backup pair and we were ready to go. We first visited Buckingham Palace, where the Queen spends some of her time. The palace is really cool - a huge building with English guards surrounding. We then went across the street to Green Park which overlooked Buckingham Palace. Already tired and hungry, we ate a picnic lunch we had packed in the morning. Awesome views and a good break, we were ready to keep going. We walked down the National Mall, a long walkway where the English have parades and also where large crowds gathered post Royal Wedding. We passed the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square and made our way to Piccadilly Circus (which is not actually a circus). This is a big area with various souvenir shops, shops, restaurants, and billboards - kind of like Times Square in New York City.

Pretty worn out, we decided to take the metro to Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament. This was a really neat part of the city. Cool picture spots and good information regarding the government in England. From this area, we could also view the top of the London Eye - especially neat because that was in the plan for later that evening.

We headed back to the flat to eat dinner and rest up before our night back in the heart of London. We took the metro back to the Westminster stop and very quickly walked to the London Eye in order to pick up our tickets for our ride at 9pm. This ferris wheel is HUGE, so tall, but very cool as it overlooks all of London. We had the perfect night with the perfect time for a ride. The sun was setting and we could see all of London at dusk. This was really cool because we had just seen Paris at this same time a few nights ago from the top of the Arc de Triumphe. We had a great 30 minute ride around the wheel and headed off for a few more pictures -- taking advantage of the awesome sunset.

We took the tube back to the flat and rested up for our day trip to Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath tomorrow.