Last Two Days in London

There was only one day we didn't have a hotel. I left one night open in case we wanted to rent a car and go somewhere outside London. Turns out we were perfectly happy in the location we were. The only bad thing is we had to try to find another one. We walked all the way next door and rented a triple room. Good news for dragging our heavy luggage, bad news is they put us at the bottom of a really long, narrow staircase. No, there was no lift. *sigh* I was really tempted to stand at the top of the stairs and give my case a good kick, but I endured. It bumped easily all the way down.

The last sight Julie wanted to see was the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace. We walk umpteen miles only to wrestle our way (or was that muscle our way?) as close to the fence as possible, which is about 7 people deep. It's 80+ degrees out and yup, I'm sweating. People are swarmed around us. I can't see a dang thing! Our running joke was, "Oh look, fuzzy hats!" At one point I asked Andy to put me on his shoulders. We all laughed. The best thing I saw that made my day, were two little blonde girls sitting on their parent's shoulders. They couldn't have been more than three years old, cute as buttons and looked like twins. They both had expensive digital cameras and were happily snapping photos from their vantage point. I heard the mom tell one of the little girls she did a great job. Too adorable. Save yourself the trouble go here:

http://www.royal.gov.uk/RoyalEventsandCeremonies/ChangingtheGuard/Overview.aspx

and here:

CotG Video Youtube

Later that evening Andy and I met his Eve online buddy in London for dinner. We caught the underground tube to the Oxford Circus area. Andy had sent him a picture of us so he could find us outside the station. It was really nice to put a face to a voice. He and his significant other are from South Africa. We went to a great Thai restaurant and spent several hours visiting with them. It was a great way to spend our second-to-last evening and get to learn a bit about South Africa. Now I want to go there!

Tonight we are hanging out at the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel. It's right next to the airport as we don't want to have to worry about getting there tomorrow. Overall it has been the most enjoyable trip I have ever had. I have memories upon memories and we have about two gazillion pictures to go with them. Look for more pics on my facebook. See you back home!