First day in London...

So today was the first full day in London, it is a Huge city!! Yesterday I arrived around lunch time, made it to the hotel (the lovely "Piccadilly Backpackers Hotel", which I would not necessarily recommend for people to stay at), then went on a walk via Traflager Square, over to Buckingham Palace, taking a very roundabout way so it took at least twice as long. Of course it was raining, it was just like Seattle. Then I went back to the hostel and took a nice long nap.

This morning Jen and I went on the "Big Bus Tour", then to the London Tower, then for a nice little boat ride on the Thames (very dirty looking), Jen went up in the Eye of London (think - huge ferris wheel that you stand in, is glass enclosed, and gives a great view of the city). Being scared of heights I chose to sit by the river and people-watch. Then back on the bus to Harrod's where we had tea (I replaced the tea with hot chocolate), walked around (very expensive). I forgot to mention, everything here is so expensive! Gas looks like it's about $8-9 per gallon or so, lattes are just a little bit less but that's in pounds, so it's still almost twice as much. Money is going very quickly. We got back on the bus, drove around Kensington Palace, over by Notting Hill (didn't get to see Hugh this time, although we did learn earlier where both Sean Connery & Margaret Thatcher live). Got off the bus so we could walk through a small hurricane at Hyde Park, then over through Green Park so Jen could see Buckingham Palace, and then back through Green Park which has fun chairs you can rent out to sit on (which might be more attractive in the sunshine).

Tonight we may go along with the hostel "outing" to some pub or another, we shall see. Hopefully we can avoid our 7x7 room for a little while longer, and most definitely the mildewy shared bathroom down the hall with barely enough water to wash your hands and definitely not enough water to rinse your hair.

Tomorrow we're hopefully going to disappear into the English countryside and then I can't wait for sunshine in Italy!!!