Sightseeing in London

Despite being concerned about my lost wallet and frustrated by having to deal with the consequences of losing something so important, I am so very grateful to be able to be in London. I feel very fortunate to be able to take such a nice vacation and appreciative of the Strategic team who are "holding down the fort" while we are gone.

We got our first real glimpses of the city today. Although we drove through it yesterday, I spent more of my time sleeping than observing. We hopped on a Hop-on Hop-Off tour bus today. Unfortunately we got such a late start that we did not take much advantage of the hop off feature.

This is actually a great way to at least get a quick look at the sights - enough to convince us that we must return someday. There is such a long and rich history here that the US seems like a mere baby.

Some of the "must see more of" places that we passed are The Tower of London, Parliament, Buckingham Palace and various Museums. This is not to mention the shopping, theatre, and restaurants that called our names.

We did hop off once to take a ride on the Eye, th

e largest ferris wheel in the world. The wheel moves so slowly that it takes 30 minutes to take the circuit. We were in the pod with about 15 other people

Some of the things that I learned today.

• Green park was originally a cemetary for leapors (sp). There are no ponds or flower beds in the park. Eeww.
• The first miniskirts were work in London.
• The first Hard Rock Cafe opened in London. The owners got the idea because they could not find a good burger here.
• One of the favorite foods of people here is Indian. I guess that is what the result of colonization. The first Indian restaurant opened here in the early 1800s.
• They have such high regard for Winston Churchhill that his statue has an electrick current that scares birds away. They do not want pigeons pooping on his head.

Funny conversation of the day: We passed a statue of a nude man. Kristina pointed it out to Ben and they laughed about seeing the man's butt. Ben said something about his butt cheeks. I thought to myself . . . it is a good thing we did not drive past the other side. I can just imagine what that conversation would be like.

Tomorrow we are headed to the ship.