On Our Last Day in London

On our last day in London we...

went to church in the pouring rain

got out of church and it wasn't raining anymore, so spent the day outside. First at Kensington

Will and Kate live here

I think I would prefer to live here

Then down by the Thames

 Look at that beautiful sky. Of course the weather improved as we were leaving. But it didn't matter, because we knew it was 80 degrees in Romania, which was our next and very highly anticipated stop!

If you give a pigeon a bread crumb...

...they ambush you!

So, there was no bird lady on the steps on St. Paul's in London like Mary Poppins said. But there was one who was passing out bread crumbs in Paris by Notre Dame, and even more surprisingly, Victor actually participated in the bird feeding. It was surprising because he usually refers to pigeons as rats with wings. It was short lived, because soon he had pigeons swarming all over him.

 The only pigeon feeding I was going to participate in was on the steps of St. Paul's, because Mary Poppins told me to. 

And those birds at St. Paul's have been fed by one too many Disney enthusiasts, because they didn't hesitate to get all up in your grill.

St. Paul's was really cool too, by the way. But once again, no photos allowed!

Friends and the West End

Did you know that London becomes insanely busy and crowded on Saturdays? It's worse than in any other city I've been to. Everyone decided come to London on Saturday, so we got out. We were able to go to the LDS temple just outside of London with our friend Ionut. It was a nice and welcome break from the go-go-go week that we had.

After that we hit up the Portobello Road Market: a life long dream of mine since watching "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" as a kid, one of the lesser-known classics of Walt Disney. The whole time I was singing the infamous song, but Victor had no idea what I was talking about, so I wish my sisters could have been there too. If you don't know what I'm talking about either, watch it on youtube, pronto!

It was just what I imagined. It was also rainy and cold, but what else is new??

That evening, we got to see my oldest bestie Shelley and her husband. Shelley and Brian live in Utah, but were also in London for a few days. We only had to go all the way to London to hang out all together! It was great though. We had the best Indian food I've ever had at the oldest Indian restaurant in London overlooking Picadilly Circus. Then we all went to a play on the West End. It was a non-musical comedy called "Noises Off" and it was so good. It was fun to see a show that we knew nothing about---like a clean slate.

So that was a great day as well. And we ended at the swankiest hotel of the whole vacation, thanks to my dad, who treated us to an evening at the Hilton. Thanks again, Dad!

London Treasures

We spent an entire morning at Westminster Abbey. That place was amazing. Definitely a favorite. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside, which was totally not fair, because the interior is amazing. But I got some photos in the cloisters.

 I didn't know what I was most excited about: seeing the place where Kate and Will got married, or seeing all the graves of the incredible people that are buried there. At first it was totally Will and Kate. And then I changed my mind. Charles Dickens and and George Frideric Handel are buried there, for crying out loud. There's a cool spirit there. And for you math lovers, Isaac Newton is buried there too, so my husband got very excited too.

After that, we got to meet up with one of my best mission buddies, Tom Shillabeer! Tom lives south of London and came up to spend the day with us. This included visits to the British Library and British Museum, which I'm sure he was thrilled about, and also a walk to what was supposed to be Kensington Gardens, but someone who shall not be named was following the wrong huge green patch on the ipad map, and we ended up all the way in Chelsea by the soccer stadium. I was a little upset (understatement), but the guys were excited to try and get glimpses into the stadium.

we spent all day together and only got one photo :(. we were just too busy catching up.

 The exhibit at the British Library was a definite highlight for me. They have some incredible stuff in there: the Magna Carta, the original Tyndale Bible (amazing!), the original score of Handel's Messiah (again, AMAZING!), Mozart's original scores, Shakespeare's folios, the original copy of Jane Eyre, original lyric sheets from the Beatles, and much more. I was in nerd heaven. 

how could I NOT take this photo??? 

 We ended the day at Harrods Food Hall for half off food, and that was fun, except going to Harrods really isn't that fun when you're poor. That place is swanky, and full of rich Arabs stocking up on their Louis Vuitton. After Harrods we headed over to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was a big mess of random exhibits--the ones that I was excited to see were closed, naturally. So we headed home to our cute (and slightly janky) hotel in Notting Hill.

Good day.

Jolly Holiday in London

So we LOVED London. We had a great time and we loved being able to see old friends. We're pretty sure if we had the chance to live in London, we would totally grab that opportunity. Anyway, our first night in London, we drove around and saw various sites with our friend Ionut. It was a beautiful evening, but it was, you guessed it, cold!

We started the next day off getting off at the wrong tube stop, which actually turned out being a great thing, because we ended up at the Borough Market for an early lunch. I loved that place, and I really want to go back! It was full of amazing food vendors and I wanted to try everything. 

at least you know the rabbit is fresh. right: me enjoying my juice and curry

And then after a stroll across the London Bridge and a walk down the road, we were at the Tower of London. That place was really cool. So much history there. But be warned, the torture chambers aren't nearly as cool as Mary Kate and Ashley make them seem. That was kind of disappointing. The crown jewels were way cool though. Not a MK and A fan? You're missing out on one of the greatest movies ever made.

Then we headed over to Westminster and explored around there. We got lucky, because this whole time, it wasn't raining. That's why we spent our whole day outside. 

No royal family citings, unfortunately.