Well, here we have it. And about half a year less of a wait than the Korea blog! A quick summary: Brad and I wanted to have one last fling before the baby comes. I'd been to London twice before, but he'd never been. It's expensive, but it's easy to get to and get around in. Plus it's my favorite city, ever! It was nice to show it off to Brad.

We didn't take too many pictures. Because of my two previous trips, I have pictures of most of the major stuff already so I opted to just enjoy the trip and worry less about snapping photos all the time. Of course, once I got home I decided that was a stupid idea because I have very few snaps! Also, much of what we saw was inside museums and other places that didn't allow photography, so we've got those images imprinted in our minds. Sorry we can't share!

Because of my condition, we had to take things a little slower than I'm used to, but we worked ourselves pretty hard and still saw a lot! We spent huge chunks of time at the Imperial War Museum, the Tower of London, the British Museum and the British Library. We ate pub food for lunch and sampled treats from around the former empire for dinner. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to make some memories and spend fun time together. We'll go back someday when the kids are old enough to understand what they're seeing. I can't imagine that we'd ever stop travelling. Like the Korea blog, if you want to see the picture better, just click on it and it will open in a new window. Enjoy!

Major London stuff you have to see:

We saw most of the obligatory stuff right away. Picadilly Circus, the Horse Guards, Westminster Abbey and Tower Bridge. I am excited though, in my last two trips to London, I have yet to get a decent picture of the Bridge. My hair is crazy because of the wind, but at least the Bridge looks good!

Random Sights in London

We easily spent an entire afternoon in the Imperial War Museum - it's SO cool! We also got a kick out of seeing this section of the old Roman wall that used to surround the city of Londinium. Another fun bit was spotting this historical marker about William Bligh by accident.

Weather

It was freezing! Apparently the weather was beautiful the week before we came (and it was gorgeous as soon as we left) so spring had sprung. The wind was really bad and was one of the major factors in us not getting to ride the London Eye. It would have been fun, but not in 30 mph winds! Despite being freezing cold every day, at least there was lots and lots of green grass and pretty flowers!

Just for fun:
I introduced Brad to the wonderful world of pasties. Here I am enjoying a tasty Cornish pasty. Yum! Also included here is a picture of Brad, me, and the baby-to-be in the garden of Clare College, Cambridge. I was so focused on making sure we had a good belly pic, I failed to notice my ridiculous expression until we got home. I'm not quite as big as it looks, the angle at which I'm standing and the cut of my coat accentuate the bump, but it's there! Proof that Baby Wineman got to go to England.

King's Cross Station
Okay, I am a huge nerd. I love Harry Potter so much, I drug my good-natured hubby to King's Cross station just so I could try to go to Hogwart's. I didn't quite make it through the wall, so I guess it's a life condemned to reality for me. Bummer.

Greenwich
This, too, was a fun excursion outside the main part of London. It was weird, because we could see the hubub of the city, yet it was so quiet and peaceful in Greenwich. We loved the Naval museum, but we couldn't take any pictures. We got to see the ball drop at the Royal Observatory at 1:00pm - it does it every day and our timing was perfect. We even got to do the traditional picture straddling the Prime Meridian, with one foot in the western hemisphere and one in the eastern.

Cambridge

We really enjoyed our venture outside of the big city. Brad's VMI classmate, John, has lived there for a couple of years and was an excellent tour guide. We loved the quiet, laid-back feel to this lovely university town. We got to ride on the river in a flat-bottomed boat, walk around the colleges, and just get caught up with John. A fabulous day!

Theatre

We really like going to musicals, so we saw three while we were there. It's so much fun to see them in the West End and if you get cheap seats, it's roughly the price of most evening activities in the city. Spamalot was fun, but won't rank among my favorites. I'd seen Les Mis before and was thrilled to get to see it again - it's my absolute favorite! Wicked is a close second, though... I'm listening to the soundtrack while I work on this blog. I'll never watch the Wizard of Oz the same way again. *grin*