Day 1 - The Arrival

We are here! A long time in planning, it is hard to believe we are back in England. Deb and Karen traveled to Wales 15 years ago for a Summer Study through Olympic College. We had long weekends, so took the opportunity to see Ireland, Scotland, and visit London. That seems like a long time ago!

The original plan for our 2008 trip had been to go to Ireland, but as the planning got going and the list of things to see got longer, we decided to split the trips and do the England/Scotland part first. We'll be spending a couple of days in London, going on a Trafalgar Tour through England and Scotland, and then traveling on our own for a few more days, visiting the town in Wales we called home for a summer.

Our van driver from the airport gave us a mini-tour as he drove us to our hotel, the Hilton Olympia. We knew we did not want jet lag to cost us our first day here, so we quickly unpacked and freshened up and headed straight for the London Eye.

We had studied the tube map and were confident that we wouldn't get lost, but our first hurdle was not which line or direction to take, it was figuring out the ticket machine at the station. Luckily a kind gentleman took pity on us and started punching buttons until it spit out two round- trip tickets. (He did it at lightening speed, and we were both pretty sure neither of us could recreate his Touch-screen Tango, but we'll worry about tomorrow's tickets then.)
The tube map study sessions paid off and we were able to transfer trains, and arrive at Westminster station without any drama. We were like two school kids when we left the station. There were the Houses of Parliament! With one swift motion (grinning ear to ear), we both had our cameras out and were snapping away. The nice thing about London is that you are always surrounded by other tourists, so you don't have to feel self conscious about taking pictures. You would probably stand out more if you didn't have a camera in your hand!

After a few pictures of the Houses of Parliament (top photo) and a few dozen pictures of Big Ben (second photo), we walked across the Westminster Bridge, making sure to take a few more pictures of Big Ben from varying distances just in case.

We would need to eat before we took our "flight" on the London Eye, and we are only slightly ashamed to say that we ended up eating at McDonald's. Hey, we were really hungry, and the only thing we saw before the Golden Arches was a street vendor selling some sort of roasted nuts. (OK, we didn't really look that hard. Our burger and chicken strips were delicious!)

The last photo is of a former government building that now houses the London Aquarium and a Salvador Dali exhibit.