I can't believe it......we are in London!

Thank you Pizza Zone for buying so much stuff that we were able to go to London on airline miles!

We finally got to use our passports and take a trip of our lifetime.

So......thus begins our 7 day journey visiting London.

Our plane didn't leave until 6:20pm on Saturday.  I had wanted to take the 3:30 flight, but Paul wanted to fly on a Dreamliner.  Actually, I'm glad we did -- although it did make us leave a little later in the day and delay the start of our adventure.

However, it probably was a good thing we were a little delayed.  Usually things happen at PZ while we are out of town -- this time we had two phone calls on our way to the airport.  The first one was related to a leak in the wall and the 2nd one was the walk-in cooler might not be working properly.

But of course Paul got those issues taken care of and as we waited to board our flight -- we took pictures of the planes coming in and out.

 He also wanted to take a picture of the Dreamliner that we flew on.  What an awesome airplane and so fast that it was only going to take 8 hours to fly 5000 miles.

 We made it to London at 9:30 am local time and after navigating the London customs, we jumped on the subway and headed to our hotel.

Here's the amazing view we found when we emerged from underground:

Upon our arrival to the hotel (which was only a 4 minute walk)....we checked in and decided that a little nap was a necessity before we did anything.

 

 Our hotel was exactly what we were looking for:  close proximity to public transportation, central location, and in a building that had character.  We achieved all three!

This was the view from our hotel window.  Luckily we were on the top floor and that gave us an awesome view every morning!

After sleeping for a couple of hours, we had an hour to kill until we were meeting up with Paul's friend, James.  As we wandered the streets, we found a little neighborhood park that was packed with people on a Sunday afternoon.

An interesting sculpture in the park that Paul felt the need to take a picture of because he liked it

The London taxi cabs looked a little different than what we were used to seeing.  We had a hard time in the beginning making sure we were looking the right way before we crossed the street.

 

We met up with Paul's friend and decided that we wanted steak for dinner.  Things that are different in London restaurants from the United States:

1. Cokes come with a lime or lemon.  No free refills
2. No bread with the meal unless you order is separately and pay for it
3. Portions are smaller
4. You have to ask for the check.  They will let you sit there as long as you want and visit, but when you're ready to leave -- you need to ask for it.

After dinner, James took us on a city bus tour of the city.  We really enjoyed our time with him.  Paul hasn't seen him in about 25 years......so they had a lot of catching up to do.

We saw parts of the city that we might never have seen had we not had a personal guide along with us.  After a couple of hours of bus sightseeing -- James headed back to his house and we found a quiet little pub a block away from the hotel.  We enjoyed a couple of local beers and shared our excitement at being in LONDON!

 

We had to get to bed.......we had a full day of sightseeing ahead of us!