First Day!!
falcon in Trafalgar Square to scare off pigeons
Horse Guards Parade
Windsor Castle
Inside WindsorWeapon room 1
Green Room
Knight Room
church
another cool picture of Danny
Roman guide with his little friend
Roman Baths
Notting Hill - market road
blue door!!
Last Day
Westminster Abbey cloisters
Tower Bridge
Greenwich
My brothers and Kaylee came to visit during their spring break last week. They got here on St. Patty's day in the early morning. After making the almost two hour trip home from the airport we went back into Central London. We walked by Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar before meeting Travis. In Trafalgar we saw a guy with a falcon. Apparently they use the falcons to keep pigeons out of the square now. We then all ate at Texas Embassy Cantina which of course isn't as good as real Texas food. Kaylee knew that night was the premiere of Remember Me with her favorite, Robert Pattinson so we went to try and get a glimpse of him which we actually did! Kaylee got a pretty good picture of him. Poor Dan, Dave, and Travis were among the about 20 men there.
Thursday we got up and went on the free walking tour that I'll be working for. It was like my third time to see the tour but was still good. It goes by all the big attractions... Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben.... After that Travis had to go to school so the rest of us walked around Covent Garden, seeing some street performers and the Royal Opera. Everyone got to see Piccadilly at night later and we went to a movie... my mom would be proud we saw Bounty Hunter with her favorite.
Friday was our big coach tour day. It didn't start very well because I forgot the ticket at home! On the train into London I remembered and Travis went back to get it. Luckily the tour left later than I thought so we made it in time. While Danny, David, and Kaylee got to sit around and have a nice breakfast, Travis was running home, and I was trying to run around to find someone from the company... which I could not remember the name of!
Everything ended up alright and we headed off to Windsor Castle. I think the Queen usually lives at this castle. The inside was impressive with tons of rooms, weapon rooms, fine china room, green and pink rooms, big dining room, and a room used for knighting. There was also Henry VIII's armor. Parts of it was destroyed in a fire in the 90's but has been fixed. We saw a church in the same area where Henry VIII is buried. Next we went to lunch and then Stonehenge! It started to get kind of rainy and foggy but were still able to get some good pictures of Stonehenge. Last stop was the town of Bath that has the Roman Baths. We didn't get enough time here, I think because we were stuck in traffic with the bad weather. The Roman Baths are built over a natural warm spring. At all the stops we had audio headsets guides but at the Baths we also had a Roman man. He was really great at keeping character. He would ask people where they were from and if he had never heard of it (like Colorado) he would just ask if it was part of the Empire. There was a little girl who was not afraid to get her picture taken with the giant man and he told her she was going home with him and she just nodded that was fine with her. There used to be a temple by the Baths as well and we were able to see some of the ruins left. The bus ride home was pretty long and I think our guide was still talking all the way back... he would talk the entire time in the car. Even though he did have a microphone only the first few rows could actually hear him so the quiet voice was pretty good at putting the rest of the bus asleep.
Since Friday was a long day we slept in Saturday and didn't head back into central until the afternoon. We visited Notting Hill... Kaylee and I determined to find the blue door from the movie (we found like 20...)! Then walked through Kensington Gardens and went to Harrods. Saturday is when we found out about our Grandpa Buzzy passing away. It was really nice having Dan, Dave, and Kaylee here then. They were a good distraction. We just played cards and talked about funny stories with Grandpa.
On our last day we visited the cloisters of Westminster Abbey (apparently those are free to see). Then we went on a boat taxi from London Eye to Greenwich which really is the best way to see the city and is really cheap too! Greenwich Park is beautiful... and on a really really big hill. We spent the rest of the evening seeing a couple pubs and eating! It was pretty tough saying bye to all of them the next day. We're really glad they came! Maybe next time we'll meet them somewhere else in Europe ;)
