Tuesday was our first full day in London. We started out by taking a walk all together (me, Jeff, dad, Kathryn, and Jenny) around one of my favorite places in London - Hyde Park. The BYU center is just a few blocks away, so I had spent a lot of time at the park when I lived in London before. Here I am with Jenny at Kensington Gardens.
Then Jeff and I got our tube passes and headed off to explore the city. It was so fun to not have kids with us. We would just pack our backpack for the day and head off without having to really plan and we could stay out as long as we wanted. It reminded me so much of my college days when I had done a lot of travelling. It was funny, but it made me feel so young! We went to a number of sites and were able to catch Evensong at Westminster Abby. It was great because just to go into the Abby was 15 pounds(we couldn't believe how expensive EVERYTHING was there!), but if you went for a service it was free.
After that we had dinner - curry from a take-away shop, and then walked down by Big Ben and the Thames to have a treat. While we were there some family walked up to us and gave us four free tickets for a river cruise. We had arranged to meet dad, Kathryn, and Jenny there in the evening to walk around, so we all got to go on the boat cruise instead, which I loved.
It was a beautiful evening!
And after we got off, we got to walk along the Thames. Here is Tower Bridge in the background. 
Wednesday we bought a three day London Pass, which gets you in to a ton of the tourist sites. And we definitely got our money's worth out of it! First we went to the Tower of London. We got into a group led by one of the Yeomen Warders (or "beefeaters"). This is in front of the gate that comes in from the Thames where they used to bring prisoners in.
Jeff just outside of the Tower of London.
Nest we went inside the Tower Bridge and saw a short documentary on the construction of the bridge. We got to walk up all of the stairs to the top of the bridge and walk across to the other side. It was an awesome view from up there.
And then we took a tour of the HMS Belfast. It reminded me of when we lived in London the first time as kids and Jon Jon had his birthday party there.
After pounding the pavement all day we got something to eat and then went to the Apollo Victoria Theater to see Wicked!!! Jeff was a champ and had woken up early that morning and went to the theater to see if we could get some of the last minute tickets that the cast had not used. He was first in line and got us center seats on the front row for 35 pounds!! It was so fun to see the show again, but I have to admit, it was better in LA!
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