These Are A Few of My Favorite Things...

Ah! I've been so busy here in London I missed writing yesterday! And I know you all were crying buckets of tears because you didn't get to live the London experience vicariously through my blog post. My deepest apologies ;)

Anyway, like I said, we've been very busy doing crazy things like bungee jumping off the top of the London Eye, scuba diving in the Thames River, and practicing our tightrope walking across Trafalgar Square. Hmm...ok, well maybe not really. But our actual adventures have been equally as exciting!

Yesterday morning we rode a boat down the Thames, which was cool. I loved seeing the city from another perspective. It's crazy here because it seems like every building was built in a different era, yet they all blend so well. Pretty cool stuff.

After, we went to the London Tower and took an amazing tour there! Our tour guide (who was a retired Beef Eater!) was great and told tons of very cool/gruesome stories about the killings of the royal prisoners that were held there in the London Towers. It was crazy interesting. I feel like history should always be taught that way. Here's a little tidbit I bet you didn't know: people actually still live there! The guys that do the tours and a whole slew of others still live in the ancient buildings! It's like their own tiny village. I personally think it's kind of creepy. I wonder if Anne Boleyn haunts the cobblestone streets at night...

After that we went and chilled at Trafalgar Square, which was a pretty fun place to hang out, even if pigeons do flock you the moment you pull out the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Oh, and call me crazy, but I swear I saw my 7th grade theater teacher there with some guy. It was kind of creepy.

Today we decided to venture on over to the National Gallery (and as an added bonus, it was free!). We did an audio tour of the place, which was basically a headset you could plug in the number of the artwork you were looking at and it gave you the background of it and pointed out artistic details and such. It was super interesting!! I have a secret obsession with looking at art, so this was pretty freakin awesome. The collection there was amazing! I literally stood inches away from works by Monet, Picasso, Rembrant, and van Gogh, including the famous Sunflowers (one of my personal favorites, cliche as it may be).

AND Mallory and I are now famous artists ourselves. There was a Love exhibit dedicated to all things love and Yoko Ono's addition was an interactive bit of art. Her wish was to have people write what they love on a post-it and put it up on the wall. I dare say Mallory and I had the best looking post-its of all time. I would have taken a picture, but apparently photography wasn't allowed in the museum. Lame-o.

We also had tickets to see The Sound of Music tonight at the theater, but we had a few hours to kill between our museum adventure and the show, so we decided to check out Harrod's, which is an enormous department store. It was indeed huge, but it was too crowded, too expensive, and waaaay too snooty. I guess my dorky tennis shoes and bulky backpack screamed peasant because I was never once greeted by a worker; the only reason I knew they were there was because I could see into the boogery nostrils as they walked past with their noses pointing high in the air.

We decided to split up and meet back together as a family after an hour, but I was done about 15 minutes into it. Luckily, Mal, Ab, and I sat in a big, comfy chair in the men's shoe department. We were given plenty of evil stares by workers there, but I think deep down in their hearts they felt sorry for us mere mortals who were worn out by the shopper shuffle.

For dinner we found (drum roll, please!) a Cafe Rio in the heart of London! I laughed my guts out at the sight of it. It wasn't your normal Pork Burrito, pinto beans, medium sauce, enchilada style (I could say that in my sleep...), but more Jason's Deli-esque. Ok, maybe it wasn't quite as delicious as Jason's, but you get the idea.

We then walked down the crowded streets to the theater and took our seats for The Sound of Music. It was a great show! I'm kind of a sucker for plays and musicals, and this one surely didn't disappoint. My only complaint would be that it wasn't a sing-a-long. I could hardly keep myself from twirling in the isles singing "...when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad...". Seriously though, it was probably one of my favorite plays I've ever seen.

We're still loving it here, and we're all still getting along great! I'm so lucky to have such a fun family to hang out with! What other family is cool enough to stand in the middle of a huge group of people doing dorky poses for pictures and laugh until we're all practically rolling on the pigeon poop-covered ground? Ok, so we're a bunch of major geeks, but I couldn't be happier.