London - From Gena's point of view

Well we are wrapping up our stay in London. We are sorry that we are just now posted. Our flight out of Cbus was delayed so we missed our plane from Philly to London. The upside is that we ended up getting upgraded to first class for the transatlantic flight. Our seats laid down flat into beds. It was amazing. The downside is that we lost more than a half day of time here and we have been trying to make up for it with long, long, long, did I mention long days. Adding to the behindness was the fact that the Tube closed down while we were on it trying to get from Heathrow to our hotel. Someone left a bag on the platform at Kings Cross. Our backpacks were a godsend because we just got off the Tube. We were at Harrods so we went in and ate in the foodhall, looked at clothes I wanted but couldn't afford and saw the creepy memorial to Diana. All and all not a bad use of time while we were stuck. : 0

No pictures with this post because there is no USB plug on the computer at our hotel but don't worry I have already taken more pictures that I probably needed to.

I of course am loving London. I am particularly in love with the fact that this is the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII taking the throne. This was my major as an undergrad and is a complete fixation of mine. Instead of a lot of the more traditional London sites I have been dragging Mike through the surrounding area to see special exhibits set up for the event. All I can say is my love of Amy and Michael Gordon has been deepened and reaffirmed. It is so packed here with tourists that guided tours are impossible to deal with so with a guidebook and the voice of the Gordon's in my head I have been explaining the English monarchy and the Tudor court to my husband. Not sure if he cares as much as I do but still I am loving it. I bought a coffee mug at the war exhibit that has the helmet logo and I'd kill for a cuppa written on it. That seems to fit my feelings in the morning.

The city is jammed with tourists and they are making us insane. We are lost tourists and are finding them annoying. Yesterday at the crown jewels some 'ugly americans' decided to make everyone's life miserable. We were on an audio guided tour but there was also a video. The audio was shorter than the video and these folks went nuts that the rest of us would dare to watch the end of the video. So they yelled, then they pushed and then they go out of line. Some by walking in front of everyone else and blocking the screen and others by taking down the velvet ropes and making their own exit. Then tonight we went to church at Westminster Abby and this American man told off the family of the Jamaican High Commissioner. The HC and his family had come to the service to celebrate Jamaica's independence day. The lovely tourist thought they were cutting in line for seating (and if they were so what the Abby is huge and there were only about 20 people in line) so he put his arm out, blocked their way and started yelling at them that the line started in the back and they needed to turn around. It was three older women who responded that they were told to come to the gate. He continued to refuse to let them pass getting louder as it went on. When a priest came to let them through he then got huffy with the priest. We were going to church for goodness sake - no berating allowed. Rudeness gets you no where in life.

This is long so I'll wrap it up but we went to Stonehenge this morning. I am sure Mike will have a lot to say about driving there and back. We had to rent a car because we got special access tickets that let us into the actual center of the circle and we had to be there at 615 am. It was rough. The pictures are forthcoming but the best part were these crazy pagen women (or at least women who thought they were pagen) trying to perform some kind of ritual. First they were in halloween costumes and had kids toys as their instruments. But then they didn't actually know what they were doing so they kept having to stop and read from a book or a google printout. It was without a doubt one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. It was capped with them yelling 'I am proud of the woman that I am.' On that note we left. : )

Tomorrow we leave London and head for Wales. We are taking a train tour of Mt. Snowdon national park and sleeping in Holyhead. We'll then grab a ferry to Dublin to being the Irish leg of this journey. It's been great - just exhausting.