London: Please mind the gap between the train and the platform.

If you ever walk the streets of London beware, this is more dangerous than you would expect.  The problem is all the Londoners try to walk on the left, but there are so many visitors who are trying to walk on the right that the result is chaos.  There is no mindlessly wandering the streets while looking up at the beautiful buildings, instead its an effort to weave in and out of people so as not to have a collision. Consider yourself warned.

Otherwise London is a fabulous place to visit!  I will tell most of my story with pictures.  First on our list was a visit to the British Library.

The statue is of Sir Issac Newton, credited inventor of Calculus so I had to get my picture taken with him.

London Walks are a must.  They have great guides who take you around and show you cool stuff while telling great stories.  Beatles London Walk landed us right at Abbey Road Studios and the famous cross walk.

Big Ben is way cooler in person than it is in pictures.  When we passed by the Parliament buildings we decided to check how long the lines where, as luck would have it we arrived just in time for a question session in the House of Lords with no wait in line at all!  We did have to sign a form indicating we would not make any disruptive noises before we were allowed to enter.

Westminster Abbey.

Buckingham Palace.

In the evenings we saw a couple musicals: Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera.  These were both located around Piccadilly Circus.

St. Paul's Cathedral is amazing!  Sadly no photography is allowed inside so the only pictures I have are from the outside and at the top.  Inside the cathedral is beautiful, we had an audio guide take us all over the inside and explain the meaning and history of different areas.  After checking these out we began our long climb up.  Part way up we stopped at the inside of the dome, this is called the Whispering Gallery.  It's 365 feet in diameter and if you stand on one side while a friend stands directly across then you can hear what your friend whispers to you.  Once at the very top (530 steps later) we came outside to an amazing view of London.

Next we headed over to the Tower of London to catch up with another London Walks group.  This place was pretty cool.  Again, not many pictures from inside, but there was old armor and weapons and such to be seen.  As well as seeing the Crown Jewels which were very impressive.

 Next to the tower we hopped on a boat and cruised down the Thames to Greenwich.

Our last morning in London we decided we must have a traditional English breakfast.  It's a fairly hearty meal and I was not hungry again until dinner time.

After breakfast we headed to the Knotting Hill area and walked down Portobello Road to see all the shops.  I had the song from Bedknobs and Broomsticks going through my head the whole time.

Hyde Park, and nearby.

We stopped by an LDS Chapel and just happened to arrive minutes before a free musical concert was to begin.

Trafalgar Square.

Our very last stop before catching the Eurostar was visiting the British Museum where we saw, among many other things, the Rosetta Stone.

I enjoyed visiting London, and I especially enjoyed riding the tube and the double decker buses, seeing new things, and hearing all the fabulous accents of people speaking around me.

 Next up... Paris.

Happy New Year!

From the Space Needle. Hope you had fun tonight!

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Warm Scarf and Snow

Yesterday I received one of the coolest presents from my friend and former roommate Holly.  Remember Holly?  She recently sent me a picture of a few scarves she made with a comment about how she kept thinking about me while making them.  This means I got lucky and she mailed me one!  Thank you again, Holly!  I absolutely love it!

 I wore my new scarf all day today.  It's warm and fuzzy and comfortable.  I even received a few compliments on it too.

As you might have noticed from the pictures it snowed here.  This is the first real snow fall I've seen this year. I believe it snowed a bit here while I was off in Europe, so I missed it.  It was the right kind of snow, just enough to cover everything and look beautiful, but not enough to mess up driving on the roads.

Even though the roads where clear many drivers were very cautious in their driving.  This caused one of my students to be a bit late to our lesson today.  He sent me the following text message to inform me of this.  I share it because it cracked me up.

Sorry i'm running a bit late, there's ppl who are like scared of the snow or something... I mean COME ON  i'm 17 and i'm driving jeez, move it woman ... Haha just saying i'll be a tad late :)

I won't lie, he's a funny kid.

And one final, random, comment.  Tonight I saw Lars and the Real Girl.  It was kinda strange, but I very much enjoyed it anyway.

Garden D'Lights

There are many things to love about this time of year.  One thing I love is all the lights.  This week I stopped by the Bellevue Botanical Garden to see their D'Lights with Shannon, a friend of mine who is home for the holidays. Great company and beautiful lights made for a fun holiday evening.  Here are a couple pictures I snapped with my cell phone.

Merry Christmas everyone!

 PS. Shannon has the coolest cell phone I've ever seen!  For reals.  Ask her about it.