It's time to try defying gravity (or, London)

England--our motherland. London was the coldest place of the trip--bone-chilling cold. I don't know if the Thames has magical powers or what, but I was so cold. Despite the cold it was fun, especially because they speak English and I could therefore understand 90% of what was said.

The apartment we stayed in was actually right by the Thames. I enjoyed seeing the river from our windows. It was near Woolrich Arsenal, a totally fun name.

We took the Underground everywhere we went (subways are so convenient in huge cities), and the announcer kept telling us to "Mind the gap" (there's a gap between the subway and the sidewalk, so they wanted to make sure we didn't put our feet in it). That announcement made me giggle every time.

We took a bus tour (of course) of London, and on one specific route they have sassy tour guides who are highly enjoyable.

London highlights:

• Big Ben! Absolutely my favorite building in London, and maybe even Europe (which I know is random given all the wonderful beautiful things I saw, but for some reason the Big Ben and Parliament buildings really stuck out to me). We didn't go inside Big Ben, but I took many many pictures of the outside of it.


• London has the largest ferris wheel in the world, the London Eye, which is more than 400 feet tall. Each pod on the wheel is about the size of my kitchen. We were lucky enough to go on the Eye, and it was a great view of London. And I didn't get sick or too freaked out to be so high.


• We saw Buckingham Palace. Which is . . . a big building behind a big fence guarded by men with guns. Unimpressive. And it didn't even have those guards with the tall black hats (you know, THE London photo op). I believe those guards are in the Tower of London guarding the Crown Jewels, but you have to pay to see that and I'd much rather spend that money on food and souvenirs (the value of the dollar sucks. It was $1.50 for a Euro, and more than $2 for a pound. Sheesh.).


• We did walk around the Tower of London, which is a neat castle right on the Thames by the Tower Bridge. I believe it's where they took William Wallace (if it's a true story. And Braveheart is just too good to not be true). It was kind of a hodge-podge of architectural styles, but I liked it. All around the building were cool blue light posts.
  
• We walked across the Tower Bridge. Bridges are neat, and this one is beautiful.


• Ha! Oh yeah. We went to St. Paul's Cathedral, which our guide told us is the steps where the Mary Poppins "Feed the Birds" took place (see, I so do not appreciate culture like I should!). It's also where Princess Diana and Prince Charles were married.


• After looking at Big Ben (yea! Big Ben!) we saw Westminster Abbey. It's very beautiful.


• The chimneys in London are really cool.
  

Because I am not very cultured, I do not enjoy most musicals. I cannot stay awake for them and avoid them at all costs. On our last night in London, though, I changed my mind about one musical (there are now three I can sit through!), because we saw Wicked and I LOVED it. I felt so grown up liking a musical.

Instead of dragging our bags around London and the metros and trains, we took a taxi to the airport. My dad told them we had lots of bags, and our driver still showed up in a Toyota Highlander-type car. Which is a good car, but not for 7 checked-size bags and about as many other carry-on bags. But our driver got all the bags in and on the car. I was so impressed. Poor Kelsey sat in a pull-up seat in the very back with the bags. We took surface streets to the airport, which was very cool because we got to see London suburbs and gorgeous houses. Our driver was an excellent guide. I liked the trip to the airport. Then right before the airport we passed rolling hills and trees, exactly the landscape I picture when I think England. It was beautiful.

We flew home on my birthday (how fun to have two different birthdays--we left at like 10 local time AM and got home at 2 PM local time--more time to party!). It was a 10-hour flight, but no layovers was SO nice. No risk missing a connecting flight or having our luggage lost. We flew Virgin Atlantic, and I totally recommend that. It was great. The employees who checked in our bags were actually the rudest airport personnel we encountered the whole trip, but the personnel on the plane were fantastic. Best I've ever had (and we were just in economy class). They were up almost every hour giving us drinks, hot and cold snacks, a meal, and ice cream. It made the flight so much easier. Also nice was the individual TVs we each had and the 10 movies we could choose from. I watched three different movies, which really helped the flight get over quickly. They had a cool map on one of their channels that showed our flight progress. That was fun.

And then there was the jetlag. It wasn't bad going from the US to Spain, but coming back from London, I really felt the 8-hour difference (London is ahead of us). I took quite a while to recover.