London day Two

Woke up to continuous steps above our head – back and forth – back and forth – AH HA – We must be right below the kitchen!  We were – but that did not matter – we had the most incredible nights sleep.  Wonderful bed, clean, quiet (well, until this morning) and just felt great!  Went and had a wonderful breakfast in the English Gardens (MOM – you would LOVE THIS PLACE!)  Got out on the streets around 11:30 (running a little behind because we went to bed so late) and got on the Big Tour Bus (the only way to do London!)  We were on the bus for about 3 hours (wow) you could get on and off at each stop – but we found it so fascinating since we have never been to London (well, Clark was here when he was 9)  Saw museums, Big Ben, The London Bridge, The London Eye, Buckingham Palace, The Financial District of London, The Aquarium, The London Tower, The Marble Arch, Westminster Abbey, The Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and ended up in Piccadilly Circus where we got out and bought six tickets for Wicked tomorrow night!  Now our bus tour guide told us that we could get tickets (half off face value) here and we walked into a very large tourist trap shop that had every kind of trinket known to man and was playing some pretty funky music to buy these tickets (there was a cardboard sign outside that said ‘Theater Tickets Here’.  The place was crawling with people!  We talked to a nice man in a corner booth (who was not like all the other sales people who were obviously from India – there were even a few people guarding doorways)   Anyway – the ‘nice’ man assured us that these were GOOD tickets and he gave us the ‘best he had’ for $40 pounds each instead of the face value of $70 pounds…we purchased them (well we have a receipt and will go back in the morning to get the ACTUAL tickets – again, he assured us that he would be there)  Clark made the comment – “yeah right we will come back and this will be a liquor store – and you will have changed your identity!”  Just kidding – but we HOPE that we have tickets for tomorrow night!  Blakely was her usual VERY CONCERNED self – and the guy just was laughing assuring her that she will get to see the play and that he has given us the best tickets!  Stay tuned!

We are home now lounging in our luxurious room…getting cleaned up to go have a great dinner at an Indian Restaurant!  Last nights meal was fabulous and VERY reasonable!  We are still on the European budget – or trying to be!  Only 3 more days L  NOW I could go on for another nine months J  But this has been a good end to our adventurous travels!