London! Day 1 and 2

Today is the first time I am able to sit on the lappy and type a day-overdue post-- Bryan and I were lucky enough to go to London, and I'm going to do my best to document it! Today is day 2 (although my computer is telling me it's 4:40 pm, it's actually 12:40am here) and I'd have to say, already we've taken to London quite well. After a 7 hour flight and an interesting layover in Iceland (so dark over there! And sleepy... perhaps we'll have more stories on the way back over) and another 3 hours to London, we've managed to get lost, (quite horribly actually) find ourselves, and already are learning how to do things quickly and cheaply. Our hotel is beautiful, and the city is amazing. We are staying in Kingston, which we hoped would be lovely-- turns out it very much is! Kingston is a large city with tons to do, and we're quickly finding adorable pubs and shops to keep busy. Today was the first day we went to London (by train), and here is a few things we've discovered:

1. Locals are wonderful. Everyone has been super friendly and helpful-- but directions are USELESS. 'Straight' has no meaning to roads. No road is straight, and each block has a different street name. Locals don't care about either, they will tell you it's 'down the street' but actually 2 miles in the other direction. We ran into lost locals tonight, which made me feel better.

2. The Tower of London isn't just a tower as I had originally imagined it. It is a small 'town' like walled-in grouping of amazing and oldness. To put lightly. Mix in a TON of history, stories, and eerie corridors and you have it. (I could go on, but I'm quite sleepy. Perhaps more later!)

3. No one uses paper towels. And toilets flush silly.

4. Bar food is incredible.

5. The accent never gets old.

6. I will never describe anything in Washington as 'old' ever again.

Here is a tiny selection of photos from the past two days-- we have tons!! Can't choose them all. Big Ben is spectacular at night. Thanks so much to Josh for letting us borrow his camera :)






So, here are a few of big ben and parliament-- and the gate in front of Buckingham Palace. More to come tomorrow!