Summer 2013 Chapter 2 - Our flight and London

Here we are at the Denver airport during our five hour wait for our Iceland Air flight.  

 this is what Iceland looked like from the airport.  In the field in the distance were acres and acres of blue lupin flowers.  Pretty.

 Neither one of us slept well Sunday night – combination of anticipation and, for my part, a different sleeping environment.  We don’t look too tired in the first  picture.  I think we do here

 

  – this is in the London subway (the tube) after flying all night.  We slept somewhat on the plane – thanks to sleep masks and melatonin and ear plugs – but certainly not a quality sleep. 

We had what seemed like a mile to walk from the tube station and the apartment that Jamilyn rented for the week.  Here is the street it was on.

 

 Here is the outside of the apartment building.  

 

 Don’t you love the name of the store next door?  This is the view from our back porch.  

 

 And this is what we had going past constantly until late at night.   

You sort-of got used to it.  The apartment was small but very nice.  Shower was not so great (again!  This is my summer of bad showers, I guess)  It wavered between hot and cold with no rhyme or reason.  It was located in the Indian / Middle-eastern part of London.  We walked by this neighborhood every day on our way to the tube.   

We also walked past rows of stalls that were set up along the sidewalk that were selling clothes and food and cell phones.  We found a fantastic, large grocery store nearby called Sainsburys that had a delightful gluten-free section with bread that was heavenly.  

 I wish we had the FreeFrom brand here in the states.

Our first full day – Wednesday – we took a train out to Hampton Court where King Henry the 8^th lived.  It was very impressive.   

 

Gorgeous gardens everywhere.   

 

 

We got back into London mid-afternoon and Juli, Jami, and Kason rode the London Eye while I sat and enjoyed people watching and visiting with a few folks who shared my bench.

Thursday we braved the crowds and went to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard.  

 The marching band played John Phillip Sousa’s National Emblem March in honor of the 4^th of July.  That was cool.  We walked around a nearby park and saw the outside of Westminister Abby (it was closed for a function).   

 

 this was a a quintessential sight in London - the phone booth, the double-decker bus and Westminsiter Abby

We visited St. Paul’s Cathedral and climbed more steps than I want to remember to get a view from the base of the dome.   Got some great shots of London, though.

Brad joined us in the afternoon and we all went out to eat near Covent Garden before going to the theater to see the Lion King.  It was really impressive.  

 We rode on the top of a double-decker bus to get there.  That was fun.

this was the view

On Friday, Brad, Jami, and Kason went to Harry Potter world and Juli and I explored more of downtown London.  We saw the rosetta stone in the British Museum.  We ate lunch at a cute little gluten-free café.  We went to Trafalgar Square which has the Acadamy of St. Martin in the Fields (see below)

 and the National Gallery. We saw some of the 19^th century art on display and we would have loved to have returned to hear a concert in the Acadamy that night but we had babysitting duty as Brad and Jami wanted to see London at night from the Eye. We walked across the London Bridge.

 

 We visited M&M World

We had a VERY early morning departure on Saturday to catch our flight out of London