On Wednesday, July 7th, we ate a nice large breakfast made by Rebecca, explored a few shops in Overton, then loaded up for the trip to Heathrow airport. Once there, we dropped off Susie to catch a flight back home, then Denise and I found the Underground (aka The Tube, the train) to head into central London. After an hourlong train ride and one transfer we ended up at the Colliers Wood train station in southern London, and our hotel was right across the street. We settled in and then spent the first evening exploring.
We got back on the train and headed to Trafalgar Square, where we enjoyed the fountains, checked out St Martin's of the Field church, then walked through the Arch down the Mall toward Buckingham Palace. We walked through St. James Park, where many people were out enjoying the beautiful evening. We went to Buckingham Palace and scoped out a good place to go the next morning for Changing of the Guards. Then we walked down to Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Westminter was closed already by the time we got there, but we enjoyed looking around the outside. Houses of Parliament was in session so there were lots of police around the building and lots of people going in and out.
Fountain in Trafalgar Square
A London cab at the Arch. 
The London Eye from St James Park
Buckingham Palace from St James Park
Me at Buckingham Palace
A guard at Buckingham Palace. (what a boring job!)
Big Ben!!
Houses of Parliament
Me and Big Ben
Houses of Parliament from across the river
Westminster Abbey
Big Ben from across the bridge
A tube sign(pictures of the following in another blog post coming soon)
The next day we ate breakfast at our hotel, then headed to the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. It was hot and crowded, but it is something to experience once. I probably wouldn't do it again. Once that was over we went back to the nearest Tube station and caught a train up to The British Museum, a history museum (with free admission!) where we spent the afternoon and early evening exploring. We grabbed a quick supper on the way back to our hotel room and then hung out for the evening. I think we watched the World Cup championship on TV that night - I can't remember exactly what day that was.
On Friday our two destinations were St Paul's Cathedral and Tower of London. We paid to go into St. Paul's and were somewhat underwhelmed. It was beautiful, but all the monuments to dead people from hundreds of years ago got a little old. Then we decided to walk down to the Tower of London since it was a nice day and there wasn't an easy way to get there on the Tube without a few transfers. I really enjoyed the Tower of London. There was a lot to see and they did a good job of explaining the history of the place. The one hour tour by one of the "Beefeater" tour guides was well worth it, and seeing the crown jewels was pretty cool too. We were beat after a big day and couldn't find any good places to eat open (they all had odd hours of 10-5, and the tourist attractions had similar hours, so by the time we got done, nearly everything was closed), so we took the Tube back to our hotel then walked to a nearby grocery store and got cheese, bread, chips, fruit and pop for supper.
The next morning we got up very early to catch the train to the airport. Upon arrival we found out that our flight was delayed 1.5 hours, but we had no way of knowing beforehand since we didn't have a way to charge our computer while in London, so we hadn't checked email since we had left Rebecca's. Our flight ended up leaving 2 hours late, and our planned 3 hour layover in Detroit ended up being a dash through the airport to make it to our gate with 15 minutes to spare, but we arrived safely in Chicago and Susie was there to pick us up. We enjoyed connecting with her again on the way home, then checked email and Facebook and fell into bed.
Overall, a great vacation, but it was fun to be back home again!
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