London - Honeymoon part 3

As a little background to this story we really wanted to go explore some parts of Europe that neither of us had been to before, France was out because Jessie's is prejudiced against the language and people, we'd already been to Germany a couple times, though there is of course more to see/do there, and we had been to Ukraine several times already, so we decided to go to England.  This gave us the great benefit of being able to stay with our friends while we were there.  Fred went through basic training with me back in the summer of 2007, and we had roomed together the year before he graduated in the summer of 2012.  So needless to say I knew him pretty well, as did Jessie because she was often in our room for some reason...oh ya, that's when we had just started dating.  And then Vanessa, Fred's fiancee at the time, moved out to Colorado Springs and we got to know her too.  Anyway, by the time they moved to England in the fall of 2012 we had become pretty close to them and we were excited to see them again.  Fred and I had been able to make it to each others weddings, but besides that we really hadn't see each other since last year.

We got into London and took the "tube" to the stop near their "flat" and met up with them.  It was so weird being in a foreign country where they speak English.  But it was really nice.  During our days there we went on some tours of the city, guided by Fred and/or Vanessa, and at night we hung out, chatted, watched TV, or played very intense board games.





We had a blast seeing Trafalgar Square, the Parliament building, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the old Naval College, Westminster Abbey, the square where Sir William Wallace was beheaded, the Tower of London and the crown jewels, the British Museum, some beautiful parks and the Greenwich Observatory.  We also enjoyed some fish and chips outside the Tower of London, took an obligatory ride on a double-decker bus, and looked for platform 9 and 3/4 at King's Cross Station, but apparently not hard enough because it's an actual thing.

Our favorite part was probably the Greenwich Observatory where in addition to taking a picture where we were holding hands with each other while we were in different hemispheres we also learned all about clocks and how they did and didn't work, and how important they were for nautical purposes, and cartography. Jessie really enjoyed Greenwich since it was so important in the history of geography. I waited and set my watch to exact Greenwich Mean Time.  That's pretty neat.

The next coolest place we went to was definitely the Tower of London.  There was so much neat stuff to see: thrones of various kings, armor and weapons from various time periods, torture chambers, the mint, etc. While we were at the tower of London it started to rain, in stereotypical British fashion, and we didn't have umbrellas so Jessie pulled us inside what appeared to be a small building, but something was off...everybody was going through the building in the opposite direction. Then we realized that we had just snuck past the Buckingham Palace guards and were in the Crown Jewels Museum, but going backwards, bypassing the 3 hour wait! We did our best to look casual as we circled our way through the rooms backwards without looking too suspicious. It was interesting, I can't even imagine how much each of those gold spoons, and swords and crowns must be worth.

Our third favorite place was probably the British Museum, which is probably equivalent to the Smithsonian Natural History and American History Museums put together...or something like that.  Anyways, it was MASSIVE!  We saw mummies, the Rosetta stone, samurai armor, statues from Easter Island, stuff from the Parthenon, stuff from Meso-america, and a ton more.  And we probably only visited...I don't even know...maybe 1/20th of the museum. It was super neat, but we were quickly done with it, since apparently everybody wanted to visit that day. We'd have to throw a few elbows just to get close enough to some exhibits just to see what was behind the glass!

The best part of the trip though was definitely just being with Fred and Vanessa.  We missed them and it was great to hang out with them.  We had some intense games of Carcassonne, but everyone was still good afterwards, although I almost had to sleep in the tub a few times after pulling a few moves that prevented Jessie for completing her road, city, or farm.  It was so nice to see you guys and we're excited for you guys to come join us out in SW Texas!