London

We are relaxing in the B.A. lounge at Heathrow after our 24 hour whirlwind in London. This was my first time here and I loved it! Eddie and I have already decided that we must come back, as we only scratched the surface on this trip.

We got in yesterday morning at around 10:00 a.m. We made it through customs with our personal belongings as well as two, 40ish pound boxes of notebooks, pencils and other school supplies. As soon as we passed through customs, our new friends Jay and Carol were waiting for us. Ill explain who these wonderful people are when I post about the notebooks that are going to Zambia. We had some coffe with Jay and Carol and then hopped in a car bound for the city. Knowing we didn't have a lot of time, we dropped our bags in our room and hit the streets of London. Our first stop: Plummers Arms Pub. We had a pint of London Pride, some fish and chips and a lamb burger. From there, we jumped on the highly recommended Red Bus for a tour of the city. About 20 minutes in, I fell asleep and didn't wake up again until we got to the Tower of London. We hopped off and realized that the tower was only open for another hour, so we just walked around the surrounding area. The air outside was nice and crisp and the wind was STRONG.

We hopped back on the bus just as the sky darkened and the city lit up. We jumped off again at the picadilly circus, fought the crowds for a little while and then decided to head in for dinner. The area we stayed in was called Belgravia and it was perfect. The area itself was nice and quiet and appropriatley described as a "leafy residential area". It was really easy to walk everywhere from there. We left our hotel for dinner with empty bellies and absolutely no destination in mind. We had a lot of choices...Lebanese, Thai, Russian and we finally decide on Portugese. I had some grilled prawns, squid, fish and rice and Eddie had salty clams and pork...YUMMY! We had a night cap back at the hotel and were in bed by 10. I don't think I got more than 3 hours of sleep

This morning we got up and had breakfast and much needed coffee at Starbucks (shameful, I know). We walked around a bit and made our way to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. We got there about an hour early, but noticed that a lot of people were already there and standing at the driveway outside of one of the gates. Following about half a dozen police motorcycles, a little commotion and a lot of squeals and excitement came a car carrying a little lady in a fancy hat. It was The Queen stepping out, following her not so well received speech the day before. What a treat! About an hour more of waiting around and we saw the changing of the guard. It was a lot more musical and a lot longer than we antisipated. So, We devoured some lunch and headed to the airport. One more 11 hour flight and we are in AFRICA. Ten years of dreaming soon to come to fruition...