Day Ten: London Bridge, Buckingham Palace, House of Parliament and Jamie

Day ten of Europe 2018 started with this blogger oversleeping. I was wearing ear plugs, and didn't hear my alarm (which was going off for forty-five minutes!). We still managed to get to London Bridge at 9:30am. The self-paced tour was actually really enjoyable. It is amazing to learn about the building of these engineering feats.

The most entertaining part was lying on the glass insert in the middle of the bridge. Notice the first photo with both girls clearly 'on the edge' of the glass. They were refusing to join me despite the signs stating "this holds six elephants". Check out the video showing how reserved Annelies was about getting on the ground with me (and notice at the end when I said "this feels good" because it felt great to be lying down!).

Tower Bridge London

Next we made our way to Buckingham Palace to see the guards. It was windy, and cold.

We went to a park to have a picnic (we packed our own food). People were obsessed with the one squirrel we saw; they kept taking pictures. It was hilarious.

She gets tired of my photos

Obsession with the Squirrel

Annelies hated the pigeons and we had to leave early because they wouldn't leave...

...Paradis was trying to make friends with them.

Next we made our way to Houses of Parliament. It took us nearly an hour to simply pick up our reserved tickets, and make our way through security. For a funny story about our security experience, check out the quote wall. We had a bit of time to kill, so we stopped the cafe for tea, hot chocolate and chai.

The guided tour with Amanda was absolutely fabulous. We learned so much, and to see the inside of the Parliament which I have seen only on video was amazing. I wish I could have taken photos, but the beautiful window from inside the bathroom (no lie) will have to do. Can you imagine how amazing the rest of the tour was?

On our way home via the Underground I saw everyone reading the Evening Standard. Check out the headline...I cannot escape from American politics. Ugh.

Our apartment is near a Dominos and the girls have been talking about getting it nearly every night. I try not to eat chain American food while in another country, as that is always available. Tonight I broke down. They were both very happy (and despite their happiness, they are still tired of me taking photos).

We ate some good greasy pizza, garlic bread, potato wedges (a think in England for Dominos) and chocolate cookies. Yum. We changed, and made our way to Apollo Theater to see Everybody's Talking about Jamie. Oh. My. Word. What a show! It was absolutely fabulous! Great message, fabulous acting, and amazing set.

Day ten ended with me falling into bed without brushing my teeth (and that is huge). I've got some sort of hip issue that I've been in deniable about for a few months now, and this trip has been challenging. The girls are tired of me saying "slow down, my hip is killing me". Today we walked nearly seven-and-a-half miles, which included forty-five flights of stairs! But we have four days remaining, so my hip will just need to absorb some ibuprofen and suck it up.