london bridge is falling down....not yet!!

hello guys,
well, Jackie and I went to London. We are masters of the tube stations! We had a great time, although we did A LOT of walking. At first, we had all of these elaborate plans to see EVERYTHING, but, that didn't work out...and we were okay with that. There is just too much to do in 2 days. Our first major event of Saturday morning was missing our bus. Well, it missed us, actually. None of the bus signs have accurate stop times, so, we thought we missed it...so we were about 5 to 10 feet from the stop, and it came and it wouldn't stop for us! So, thinking we were going to miss the train, we walked (quickly, I might add) all the way to the train station, with our huge backpacks on our back. It took us about a 1/2 hr to do, and by the time we got there, we were soaked. Jackie needed another shirt! We did make it for the 730am train though, because it was late arriving to the station. So, we got seats on the train into London.
Our first stop upon arriving to London was to find our hostel in Kensington. Everytime we mention "kensington" to a person from England, they say, "ooooh!! that's so posh!" Turns out, Kensington is where Princess Di used to live, and so, her area is supposedly pretty nice. It was, and our hostel turned out to be clean and in a great location, right next to Holland Park. It was beautiful.
After that, we boarded the tube and went to Westminster Abbey, which happens to be very close to Big Ben and the Parliament. The tube station also has great views of the London Eye (the big ferris wheel). So, we saw all of those things, although did not take a ride on teh London Eye because it was kind of outrageous prices. Westminster was beautiful though, it is crazy the detail on every darn part of the whole church, inside and out. Inside, there are lots of kings, queens, and famous people buried there, in the walls and ground. People such as Queen Mary, Mary Tudor, and Henry VII (I wish I paid a little more attention in History class, so I would remember what all these people did!). No pictures were allowed, but, we saw some good historical stuff.

Next, we walked around for a bit and went to Picadilly Circus and Leichster square. I think that a "circus" used in this term is just meaning a bunch of outdoor shops. But this certainly was a circus. For Christmas, they closed all the streets and people could just shop up and down Regent street and Picadilly. It was nuts, people were walking everywhere, the stores were crazy, definitely a CF. There is a very nice street with just about every designer and couture fashion label you can think of and Jacks and I felt a little under dressed, going in and out of the stores like Prada and Chanel, obviously not there to buy anything, but just to look and have me drool over all the lovely shoes, bags, and clothes. :-)
After another couple of hours walking, and of course, a stop for coffee, we decided to do more historical stuff. We went to Kensington Palace, where Princess Diana lived, and some other royal people still live there today. They had all of these memorials to Princess Di, some of her old dresses, and other famous kings and queens' clothes on display. The rooms were gorgeous. Of course, you only get to see about 39 rooms of the palace, which has over 400 rooms in total. so, it's huge. Very good stop.
By then, we were tired and hungry, so we made it back to our hostel, got ready, and went to dinner at the Pasta Cafe. It was our first actual restaurant where people come and take your order... It was Italian, and very good. We then went to this bar called Sticky Fingers, for some beer and people watching....
The next morning, we made our way to the tower of London, which is actually a fortress of about 15 buildings. We saw the Crown Jewels (of which, no pictures were allowed, again) and a bunch of old stuff. We learned about torture devices and what they used to do to people back in the day. We took notes. ;-) We had fun, but got soaking wet in the rain...even with our umbrellas...I took a picture of Jackie in a doorway that has been in existence since 1300AD, clearly, she would have been one of the tallest people!
We then walked like 3 miles down the Thames river to the Millennium Bridge, taking funny pictures along the way. We saw London Bridge, which you think will be this spectacular bridge....really it is pretty boring...it just goes across....it doesn't have any designs, etc. Obviously, not like the song, London bridge is NOT falling down.....Once we got to near Millennium Bridge, we saw the Globe from across the river and the Tate Museum, and decided to take the tube back over to the area where the British museum was. It is supposedly this huge fabulous museum that has free entry, etc. By the time we made it over there, we were starving, so we ate at this modern burger joint, and they had the biggest, most yummy burgers. They were huge. We ate, and then decided we were too "museum'd out." We decided to shop a little and eventually make it back to our hostel, get our luggage, and leave for Wolverhampton. We got home around 830pm last night, and were really tired. Overall, it was a fun trip....we saw lots of stuff, but still, there is more for next time! Our next city this weekend is Bath, a very quaint little city that has its roots from the Roman times where they, (take a guess), went and had a bunch of natural spring hot baths. So, more to come later!