March 31, 2019
The first item today was to get up in time, catch an Uber and go to the Hyde Park 2nd wards 9 AM Sacrament Meeting. I left the air conditioner on last night and at about 2 AM, I was freezing. So I got up and shut that thing down. Eventually the room normalized to a good temperature. But the cold got us ready for a much colder day in London.
Hailing the Uber went smoothly. We arrived at the church building which looked like an office building about 10 minutes before the meeting began. It was a very nice service. We enjoyed it so much. One young mother (it was Mother’s Day here) sang so beautifully with the Primary choir. Beautiful voice. And the speakers gave very nice tributes to their mothers.
After the meeting, we hailed another Uber back to our hotel. We quickly changed and headed about a block away where they sold the On\Off Bus tickets. The tour we bought also had River Cruise up the Thames River...which we did. After getting the tickets, we needed to find some breakfast. The gal selling tickets pointed us in a direction and we eventually found a small market like place that made plates of food. I had a very large toast with guacamole spread on top of it with lemon juice. Denise had eggs benedict. It was all very tasty.
The on\off bus tour took us about 13 stops where we got off and did the River Cruise. The River Cruise started by Big Ben and took us up the river to the Tower Bridge. It was still over cast and very cold. But there was some hope the sun would break out...which it did later in the afternoon. At the Tower Bridge, we decided to go ahead and get tickets to go inside the London Tower...a fort like structure that used to be like Buckingham Palace. There the Crown Jewels are kept in a very secure vault. But I picked the lock and we were able to sneak in. :-). This is also the place where very famous royals had people beheaded. I believe they said that they had found over 1500 beheaded bodies under the church on the site. And that was just last week! No...this practice occurred centuries ago. We spent a couple of hours there and suddenly time was creeping up one us. It was about 4 PM and the last bus was around 6 PM. We decided to go back to the Tower bridge and pay to go up and walk around up there above the bridge. One of the crazy things was the glass walk ways that allowed you to look down upon the river the lied below. I could not take. Denise and Ilene loved it. They were laying on their backs just giggling like school girls as they snapped picture after picture. I was hugging the rail on the wall. Too much for me.
It was about 5:15 PM when we got on the bus to complete our loop around the city. But we had not eaten for a while and all of us were growing ‘hangry’. We arrived at Piccadilly Circus (like NY’s Time Square) and the bus pulled over and said it would stop for about 25 minutes. And from there, once going again, it was going to be another 25 minutes. We weren’t sure what to do with such hunger pains. We decided to just ride it out as it would drop us right by our hotel. And the good news there was the nice food layout that they have between 5 and 8 PM. They also referred us to an Italian place 50 yards from our hotel for dinner. So after some pre-dinner breads and cheeses, we headed over there. But the prices...will they compared to Valter’s in SLC. Very expensive from our standards. So we opted to go back to the Pub next door to our hotel. The food was good but once again we ended up waiting for Kim and Ilene to get their dinner. As a matter of fact, Denise and I had completed our dinners, plates taken to kitchen before their plates arrived. I told them how rude it was for them to eat in front of us when their plates finally arrived. Pretty funny.
It was a nice, but cold, day. Lots of ground covered. But we’re all quite tired. I think every day on this trip is going to be this way...go, go, go. Lots of ground to cover. Tomorrow we hope to do a Changing of the Guard tour before we head over to the Bus Station (2:30 PM) to catch the bus to the Stanton Airport where we will fly to Berlin at 7:30 PM. It is going to be a long day...again.
Pictures:
The chapel entrance....
They had a Christus as you walked in....
Loved their pipe organ...
Denise’s death wish on the Tower Bridge...
Kim loving every minute of it!
The London Tower
The Tour Guides in London Tower (and body guards when the King or Queen stays at the London Tower
The Guard changing in the London Tower
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street...who was it? Sweeney Todd.
Ilene with the same wish as Denise.
Going under the London Bridge..
Big Ben being restored.
Denise with candied nuts made on the street.
The monument for all the beheaded Royals....
The group about to go into the London Tower...the fort like structure in the background.
Staying warm...
The Tower Bridge...
The River Cruise...
They beheaded horses too. A monument to such actions.
I think I saw this in Wicked...
Shakespear’s place...I forget the name.
Cold but happy...
Happy Tourists...
Winding our way through the narrow streets.
The standard city bus.
Crazy dragon like statues in London.
