things you only dream about seeing

As a kid, watching Peter Pan land on the minute hand of the face of "Big Ben" was just another fairytale setting. Seeing red phone booths and double decker busses are images that belong in the movies. So now, seeing these things, first hand, every day, is like jumping into the movies or fairytales of childhood.

Today we visited Westminster Abbey. It was amazing. The oldest most intricate building we have in Salt Lake City that I've seen is the temple. We are always amazed at how they built it in a period of forty years, and how OLD it is. Seeing the abbey, a building THOUSANDS of years old and far more intricate than anything I've ever seen was incredible. It is still used today, and a very important historical building to the British Monarchy.Lauren, Mari, Caitlin

Mari, Caitlin, Kim, Lauren, Brit

little venice

We took a little trip to little Venice today. Intricately painted houseboats line regent canal. We got lunch at this little cafe, and got a little lost trying to find the tube. I asked a friendly man where the nearest tube stop was. He kindly took me by the back and tried to lead me the whole way there. I thought he was just being nice, but the girls thought he was being a little too nice. I asked how that made them feel that the first person to get hit on in this country was the one guy...

marathon

We rode the bus down regent street to Trafalgar square. Yes, it was a red double decker bus. When we got to the square we found the London Marathon finish line. Thousands of people, all with a beer in hand, were there to cheer on their friends. We even got to join in since all the runners had their names posted largely across their chest. It was brilliant.

photographic evidence

arrival

It’s wonderful. We made it to London safely on the flight and went through customs without a problem. Brit found us right outside the gate after collecting our luggage. We found the tube and bought our tickets without a problem. Riding the tube into London was like a dream. All of the perfect little brick houses with tile roofs all in a row. We made it to the Notting Hill Gate station and after walking about an extra mile in the wrong direction we found the center. It is located on Palace Court...a name which fittingly describes the posh red brick houses that line the road. We dumped our things, went for a walk through Notting Hill and Portobello road, and took the tube to the tower bridge. In the afternoon we went for a walk in Hyde Park and did a little shopping for odds and ends that we needed in Kensington. It is all rather idyllic and pretty much exactly how I imagined it would be. Just a few random things that happened while en route:

FORTUNE COOKIES: We happened to sit next to a very nice British woman on the flight to New York. She was rather suspicious of the Chinese, however, and told us in quite a tone that she was sure the Chinese are trying to take over the world. Why, just the other day she had eaten a Chinese cookie and it had a piece of paper baked inside that said she should learn Chinese and contained her lucky numbers…can you imagine? She could have choked!

SLEEPING PILLS: Mari and I took sleeping pills right before we got on the flight to London. They kicked in right away and we were both asleep before the plane took off. Unfortunately we taxied for a very long time and my pill had nearly worn off before we even took off. Needless to say, one was sufficient for Mari, but not for me.

SLEEPING: To help get into the swing of things we have tried to stay awake all day. This does not mean we’ve always succeeded. The group of us that took the tube to the tower of London all dozed off almost immediately as soon as we sat down on the train.

STAIRS: When we got off the underground at the first station we realized we had to go up several stair cases to get to the connecting line. No escalators, no elevators, and four girls that weigh about 95 pounds each and their bags that rival that weight. What a site we were.