London calling

Thursday
Our first full day in London was a full one indeed. We caught the Big Red Bus and toured all over the city. For one fee, you can get on and off the bus as many times as you want. Reidar and I rode the London Eye, a 135 meter tall ferris wheel that allowed us to see all of London with fantastic aerial views. Tiana opted to stay on the ground with Ari.

We also did a river cruise down the Thames which ended up at the tower of London where we did the tour led by yoemen, or what have become known as "beefeaters". After that, we trekked back home. Other sites we saw while on the bus were Big Ben, the houses of parliament, Hamleys, (the world's largest independently owned toystore--which we actually went into with the kids), the fictional home of sherlock holmes, the prime minister's residence, buckingham palace, the marble arch, kensington palace, st. paul's cathedral, and a host of others.

We went back to the hotel and got cleaned up and headed out to ride a double decker bus over to the home of a friend of Tiana's uncle in central London. We had a wonderful dinner there and talked late into the evening with Jim and Jilla over several bottles of wine. We also watched a bit of world cup soccer (football) and learned about that quite a bit (everyone in the household was an expert), and their 14 year old Doug gave us some instruction as to how Rugby works. We still don't understand rugby very well. At the end of the night, we made our way back home via bus, with Reidar and Doug kicking the football the whole way.

Friday
Now that we're experts on the bus system, we got up late in the morning, grabbed some fruit and water from a local stand, and walked all the way down to Harrods. Along the way, we ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe (lunch was expensive but very good!) Then we walked to Harrods, the most outrageously expensive department store in the world. Needless to say, we didn't buy any souvenirs there. Then we hiked down to Piccadily Circus, where we shopped at Lily White's, a huge sporting goods store. Reidar and I got football jerseys (England and Sweden). Then we rode the bus all the way back home because we were too exhausted to walk back. Ari had a monster meltdown on the bus so we got off a little early and walked the rest of the way back to the hotel. Reidar got back and immediately asked if he could watch the football match and we are all relaxing and doing our own thing now. Later we'll go out for fish and chips, a pint, and then back to the hotel to pack for the flight to Norway tomorrow. We have a car picking us up in the morning at 6am (ouch!)