London - Day 2 - Tuesday

Tuesday morning we were up bright and early, ready to head out and take on London! OK, maybe not. We slept 'til about 9:30 or so and it took us awhile to get moving. After our irregular eating schedule the day before we were all very hungry so we popped round to "our local" (well, one of our locals), the Stanhope Arms for lunch. Food was pretty good and actually pretty reasonably priced.

Since it was just a couple of blocks away, we decided to start our tour with the Victoria & Albert Museum. Like a lot of the museums in London, this one was free - though naturally they were more than happy to take any donations we were willing to offer. Lots of the rooms allowed us to take photos, which was great because as the week wore on we found that there are a lot of places in the museums, especially in rooms where paintings and tapestries are, that photos are not allowed. When we saw these scepters all lined up on the wall, A knew she'd come to the right place to find the perfect accoutrement for one of her costumes. The trick was to figure out a way to get it out of the country!

We continued walking several blocks and soon found ourselves approaching Harrod's so we HAD to go in, right? A found a number of things to buy for her hubby and in the grocery section she found some stuff her English-born dad wanted, so she had her hands full by the time we left the store. We didn't care to lug all that stuff around for the rest of the day, so we hopped on the tube back to the hotel and then hopped right back on the tube to Knightsbridge.

We then strolled through Hyde Park, enjoying the greenery in the midst of the city. It was nice not to have to dodge cars for awhile - especially when they come from the opposite direction from which we're accustomed! It was nice to see all kinds of folks out enjoying the park: tourists, locals running, biking, kids playing (real) football. We found the fountain that was a tribute to Princess Diana. It's not a fountain in the "spurting up water" sense, but it's more of a "water feature" as it's a giant circular flume of sorts where water pours out of the top and follows the flume either left or right and the waters meet at the bottom.

As we kept walking we couldn't help but see the Albert Memorial, just across from the Royal Albert Hall, home of the famed Prince's Trust concerts (and many others).

Next stop: Hamley's. The famous toy store on Regent Street is 5 stories high. Here's D with a Lego Indiana Jones!

By this time we realized it was twilight and that we were starving so we went on a great food hunt. We ended up in the Carnaby Street area which had a lot of little restaurants. We found a small Italian place and sat ourselves down to rest and enjoy a relaxing meal.

Back at the hotel and we'll stay up 'til after midnight so we can help D welcome her 40th birthday head on! She says that because she was born in the US (5 hours behind London time), she's still got a few hours to go. (As if THAT would stop us! LOL)