London: Day 1

Hey all, sorry it has been so long since I have blogged. I am a slacker. These pics are from the first day of our London trip. Jeremy and I went for our anniversary and actually got to go by ourselves. Our good friends John and Vikki kept the kids. We had to be on SHAPE that morning by 0615 to board our tour bus. We traveled by bus about 2 1/2 hours to Calais where we boarded a ferry to England. The ferry ride was 90 min. and gave us a chance to eat and shop while on board. The ferry docked in Dover, so we got to see the White Cliffs of Dover and the Dover Castle above them. From there it was another 2 hours to London, on the wrong side of the road!! I almost got ran over countless times because I was looking the wrong direction for oncoming traffic! We left from the hotel and went to try our luck at using the tube (subway). It was amazingly easy and we quickly found our way to Picadilly Circus to pick up our London Passes. From there we wandered on foot for a bit and checked out some monuments and located Scotland Yard on our way to Buckingham Palace. We did not tour the palace because of a lack of time, but the gates and fountain out front are beautiful. From there we made our way over to Westminster Abbey. They will not let you take pictures from the inside, but it was amazing (and my favorite). It blew my mind to think of all of the people buried inside those walls. There was an audio tour that was very interesting. The monks that originally ran it attended 7 church services each day (one in the middle of the night for a couple of hours and one monk had the job of making sure that the others stayed awake!!) From there we wandered about a bit, checking out Big Ben, the Eye (the big ferris wheel that we were told not to ride!!) and the House of Parliment. After that it was back to the tube to head to the hotel to change for the show that evening. Thankfully the tube was only about 2 blocks from the hotel and 1 block from the theater because I did not make the best footwear choice for dressing up for the show. Jer and I had forgotten to eat lunch and didn't have time for dinner, so we grabbed a quick appetizer at a restaurant across from the theater. We went from there to the Apollo Victoria Theater to attend a production of Wicked. I told Jer that this is what I wanted to do for our anniversary and he reluctantly agreed. In the end though he thought the show was fantastic!!!! The last pic is of the stage before the show began because you cannot take photos during the performance. The actors were great and it was a wonderful evening.