Well, our trip to London was fun. I did find it somewhat hard to enjoy, though, because of the cost. My GOD – London is effing expensive!!! How do people live there? We were handing 10-pound notes out like they were pennies (and 10 pounds equals $20.) The only place I have ever been that is more expensive than London is Kuwait. Thank goodness the trip was partly paid for because of Jack’s boon-dogle, er, I mean, conference. Ok, enough about the cost – just whatever you are imagining it cost- multiply by 180! (or so.)We were lucky in that it did NOT rain everyday. I was expecting it to do so. It was cold, and windy – but it was actually sunny on one day and only rained on one day. My main impression is that London is a great, busy, grey city. Everything seemed grey: the buildings, the sky. But it was fun! London is a nice city with a lot of history, good (cute) taxis, many different restaurants- of any cuisine you could ever want (we did NOT eat Italian the entire week, even though it seemed like every other restaurant was Italian) and interesting architecture.
It may be a grey city, but it is a busy city. There are people hustling and bustling about at all hours of the day. The place is crawling with Black Cabs and fury-headed guardsmen of the Queen (and their horsies.) We did enjoy our visit. The first day we did a bus tour of the city. An easy way to see a lot of sites while entertaining Sammi. She thinks bus rides are the greatest, especially when we rode up on top! That way we saw the Tower Bridge, Tower of London (where Henry the VIII cut off 2 of his wives heads), Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, and all kinds of other things. The only thing that was disappointing was Big Ben. Yea, it was big. I mean, one minute takes up one foot of clock-face, but still, after all the hype I was expecting something BIGGER!!!!
The next couple days while Jack was at the conference Sammi and I wandered around the area. We were close to Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. It was SO AWESOME to go outside and walk around. We were outside each day for anywhere between 4 to 6 hours. The streets were clean – no garbage, no doodie. No one was trying to run us over. People were walking on the sidewalks, not parked on them – and the sidewalks were wide and smooth. Ah, civilization, how I miss thee.
For me, one of the best things about leaving Italy is eating food that is not Italian – and going to restaurants that are open when the G is still awake. Well, we ATE, but even with all that eating I still lost 5 lbs from all the walking and playing outside. Here, I go walk maybe 30 minutes to an hour, but it is so stressful it is probably GIVING me heart disease instead. While there we ate Indian (dot) food, sushi at a conveyer belt place (the sushi rides by on the conveyer and you pick what you want), donair kebabs, beef potpies and a bunch of other stuff. Mmmmm. I wasn’t too impressed with the breakfast, but that is because the only breakfast I like, especially at hotels, is the Mediterranean/Turkish/Middle-Eastern breakfast. But if sausages and back bacon and something gross and black with baked beans and a hot tomato is your thing then you would like it.
We went to the London Aquarium for Sammi. She LOVED it (except for the feeding of the sting-rays, she wasn’t really into that.) We were in there for about 3 hours and she was just running around doing her happy walk. It was cute. Then we took a ride in the London Eye. It is a big Ferris wheel with these giant egg-like pods that you ride in. You can then see the entire city from above. It was pretty neat, and Sammi liked it, too. On our last day we saw the changing of the horse guards and fed ducks, geese, and squirrels at a pond outside Buckingham Palace. 
That was about it. We wanted to tour Westminster Abbey, but G and I had had enough. We had to go back to the hotel room for a nap. Whew! All that walking around all week did add up. 
No one was as excited as Sammi to get home, though. She had stopped eating the last few days of the trip and I didn’t know why until we landed. We walked out of the airport and Sammi saw where we were and smelled the smelly air and started saying, “eat, eat, eat!!” She ate an entire fruit bar, a bag of cheetos, raisins, a granola bar, and a tootsie roll on the way home. (All our emergency snacks we keep in the car since you never know when a demonstration is going to delay your trip.) The next day she ate all day long. She kept bringing her empty bowl and spoon to me and saying, “more!” She was just HOMESICK! I guess she missed her bed, her toys, her kitty cat, and her friends. It was kind of cute, but worries me about when we move back when she is 3. Next, we gallivant off the Northern Germany for a week on the 17th!
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