February 8

Day 39

Our day started early.   We met Cam's parents at the train station.   It was ridiculously BUSY!   I learned another lesson about England... no one walks at a normal pace.  Everyone is either speed walking or running.   The English have places to go and they need to get there fast.  Also, there's rules about things like riding on an escalator.  Stand on the right, walk up on the left.   Don't even think about standing side by side... I'm sure they'd run you over!
First stop was to find a geocache.   I must admit that I absolutely loved the little park that it took us to.  I would have liked to have more time to look around and read.  Little hidden gems like this park is why I love geocaching....

Nothing extraordinary about the cache.  It was all about the location.

Old tombstones lined the walls of this little park.

An unexpected find.  A memorial to heroic self sacrifice

The wall.   I must admit, I shed a tear reading through some of these.

I wish I could share all of the stories with you.

Next stop.... St. Paul's cathedral.   It was amazing.   Unfortunately, photos inside were not permitted.

St Paul's Cathedral.  The sheer size of these buildings is amazing.

Details.   That's what makes them so interesting.

Let's keep going.   After a quick lunch, we went for a walk and we went to the Tower of London.
Inside we saw the "Tower of terror" that told about torture.  We saw lots of armor, shields, cannons, etc.   We saw the Crown Jewels (too bad we couldn't take pictures of those!  They were impressive!)

The outside of the Tower of London.   It would have been cool if it still had water in it's mote.

Lots of armor from different royalty to look at.  See the little tiny one there?

This dragon was cool.  Made from cannons, rifles, shields, bolts, etc.

Kind Henry VIII's armor.  I couldn't stop laughing.  Oh my.

A view of the Tower of London with the Tower Bridge in the background.

Moving along.  We went out onto the walkway to look at the Tower Bridge better.  Very cool.

 We decided to take the public transportation boats and head up river towards the Parliament buildings.  It was fun to go for a ride on the boat.  Once there, we went for a long walk and we spent some time sight-seeing....  see the below pictures....

Our boat we went on

London Eye

Parliament Buildings and Big Ben

Big Ben.  That's another thing.... all the bells ringing from different churches in Europe.

A geocache inside a phone booth.

Westminster Abbey.  No time to go inside unfortunately.

Cool park.  Loved the little cottage.

Trafalgar Square

National Gallery museum.  A short walk through.   Lots of nude pictures which made our missionary parents uncomfortable.  Ha!

St.Martins in the Field

Beautiful inside for this small church.  We sat and listened to the small orchestra rehearsing for their Bach performance for later that night.

Phew!   We're almost done.   It's crazy to see all the things we did in one day.   To finish off the day, we enjoyed a broadway musical..... Phantom of the Opera.   When Cam mentioned that maybe we could see a musical, I said "if you want to make me really happy, you'll take me to see Phantom."   I've always wanted to go.  And it did not disappoint.   A really fabulous way to end off our day in London.

Wow!  What a great day in London!