London

Tuesday October 28, was the Greek Holiday "Oxi Day" or "No Day" which is when the entire country celebrates the fact that the Prime Minister said "No" to Mussolini's invasion of Greece during the 2nd World War. We took advantage of the day off to spend a four day weekend in London. We started our trip with a day of walking through the traditional tourist sites including visits to the London Eye, Parliament/Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abby, St. Paul's Cathedral, the London Tower, the Crown Jewels and Harrods department store.

We started with a sky view of the city on the London Eye. This is the Parliament and Big Ben.

Picture of a London Eye capsule at its peak.

Rich and Mere in the London Eye capsule in front of the Parliament.

We took a tour of the Westminster Abby, London's oldest and most important church. Many British Monarchs, scientists, poets and writers are buried within the Abby.

After our tour of the Abby and a meat pie and pint at the local pub, we headed to St. Paul's cathedral to see the second largest dome in the world (after St. Peter's in Rome). We walked up hundreds of stairs in a narrow one person wide spiral staircase to the Whispering Gallery (where the acoustics cause whispers to echo around the dome) and the Stone Gallery (where you can see great views of the city) near the top of the dome.

Finally, we headed to the London Tower to get a glimpse of the crown jewels and the historic jail for people who committed treason or threatened the throne. Members of the Queen's Guard, guard the jewels just like they guard Buckingham Palace.

Meredith with some special order armor at the London Tower.

36 yeoman wardens known as "Beefeaters" guard the tower and live there.

Next to the Tower of London is the famous London Tower Bridge. As you can see, part of it was falling down so it's currently under repair.

Sunday morning we headed to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. Unfortunately, after standing in the rain for half an hour with thousands of other tourists, they canceled the changing of the guard for weather! I guess we'll just have to go back another time.

We also got to ride in a double decker bus.

After our time in the rain on Sunday, we headed to Harrods Department Store to dry out for an hour before heading to a Soccer Match.

We have officially become fans of the Tottenham Hotspurs Soccer Team. When we came to London they were in last place and hadn't won a game. We watched their first win of the season and they've gone on to win the next couple of games since then! Go Spurs!!!!

We really had a great time at the match. The stadium was packed with fans and the Spurs won 2-1.

After the Tottenham match we headed to Wembley Stadium to watch the NFL Chargers play the Saints. It was another great game with a lot of very confused British fans trying to figure out what was going on most of the game. We sat next to a diehard Chargers fan who had taught our section to yell "First Down!" whenever he yelled "What down is it?". He always had to start the cheer because nobody else really knew when it was first down...they just knew that was always the answer.

After our sports day on Sunday, we spent Monday at the British Museum seeing all of the pieces of the Greek Parthenon that we've never seen. We also checked out the mummy/Egypt section so that we're prepared for our trip at Christmas. The hi-light of the museum was the Rosetta stone. Monday night we headed to Piccadilly Circus and the theatre district of London to see Mama Mia. The musical was amazing and our dinner afterwards was the perfect way to end our mini vacation.