London Day 1

Greetings from across the pond!

Well we made it to England, flight was good, pretty quick in fact at under 6 hours. Neither the hubs nor I got a lot of sleep on the flight but we were surprisingly alert when we got to Heathrow.

This first shot is a view of the passport control area from our perspective. To me this says "Welcome to London, aaaaaand this is where you will be spending the next two weeks". The line was fairly ridiculous but it also moved fairly quickly and we were outta there in about 45 minutes.

Jump to about an hour later, we arrive at our hotel thanks to our comical shuttle driver Mark. Got ourselves a little upgrade to one of the newer rooms because we are honeymooners and were able to check in early and sleep for a few hours before heading out for our first day of sightseeing.

Here are some of the highlights of day 1:

About a block from our lovely hotel is the little "shack" pictured below. Pretty extraordinary how many people are constantly surrounding the palace.

Little known fact about Buckingham Palace (per our shuttle driver Mark), commercial vehicles are not allowed to drive in front of the palace, they are forced to make a big circle if they want to get from one side to the other.

A shot of the hubs in front of the palace. Notice the marching guardsmen in the background.

After taking in the view of the palace, we headed on foot towards Leicester Square to buy some theatre tickets for tonight. On the way, we heard a loud noise and looked up to see several large helicopters (possibly royal helicopters??) coming in for a landing. After we got back to the room from sightseeing we found out that the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have returned from their honeymoon. Now whether it was them or not it is impossible to say but I like to think that it was : )

After getting tickets for tonight's performance of We Will Rock You, we tubed it to Knightsbridge to check on the goings on at the world's most luxurious department store, Harrod's. For any of you who have been to Harrod's you know that you could literally spend all day there and not see everything so we opted for the highlights.

One of the nicest thing about Harrod's is the memorial to Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed that is located on the ground floor, down the beautiful Egyptian escalator. Dodi's father Mohammed (also the owner of Harrod's) has graciously displayed the engagement ring that Dodi gave to Diana as well as the wine glass she drank from at the Ritz on the night she and Dodi were killed. What I found to be odd was the number of tourists that were taking pictures of themselves next to the memorial. While I understand taking photos of it (which I myself did - see below), it just seems wrong to take pictures WITH it, given its somber nature. It really does make you want to cry a little bit, thinking back on the entire senseless tragedy.

One of the most impressive things (in my mind) about Harrod's is the food halls. There are several and they are all very impressive. The food hall pictured below is the seafood hall, there are several bar-type areas set up which serve different types of seafood, I believe the one pictured below was serving oysters.

Since it is Saturday and Harrod's was packed, we decided to get outta there and head down towards Kensington to catch the tube back to our hotel. We unknowingly stumbled upon a wonderful little neighborhood. Kensington is beautiful and very peaceful as you can see from the picture below. Beautiful white townhouses line the crescent shaped streets and walking down them really gives you an opportunity to take in the beauty.

The townhouse below is for rent - I believe the hubs is interested

Another elaborately maintained crescent street.

Walking through Kensington gave us a chance to see how London's upper class lives. And I gotta say - it ain't too shabby. Ferrarris and other exotic imports line the streets and many homes are protected from the outside by fancy shmancy gates.

After our walk through Kensington, we hopped on the tube back to St. James where we are currently relaxing and deciding where we should eat tonight before the theatre.

The first day has been great - and I hope the next 13 will be as well.

Catch you all tomorrow!