London: day 2

It is our first full day in London.  We both woke up at 1230am for about 3 hours but went back to sleep until normal wake up time.  I think we are going to beat jet lag this trip!  There was a really nice farmer's market a few blocks away so we went to check it out.

I miss living in an area where I can walk down the street and buy farm fresh products for a good price.  I used to buy fresh flowers all the time for a fraction of the cost of what it is in the US now.  I'm not saying London is cheap but it is nice to buy directly from the seller without the middleman.  We dropped off the products and headed to the Covent Garden area.  I did not realize until we were there that we had been there before but it was a nice sunny day and enjoyed watching all the people and street performers too.

 

Colin wasn't too sure about the entertainers.  He has seen them before but he was being difficult and did not want to drop money in the cup/plate.  Trying to get him anywhere near them was hard much less let me snap his picture.  I was a little annoyed with him.  We walked around a little bit, and then Colin started complaining he was sooooo hungry and wanted a steak so we popped into the Crown & Anchor pub to feed him.

The two students needed to go tend to some homework so the trio headed out to do a Big Bus tour around town.  It was a nice sunny day and we had nothing but time!  It was fun to see the landmarks from the top deck.  The city was busy and Christmas decorations/lights were up.

I was nice to be able to look around and not have to worry about driving!  I loved passing over all the flags . . .

. . . and seeing all my favorite landmarks in London too!

Colin's absolute favorite part of London is the Tower Bridge with the HMS Belfast in front . . .

I think I took at least 50 photos of Big Ben . . .

. . . there was some confusion with our tour stops and we managed to circle by Big Ben at 3pm and 4pm.  Does that mean we will have double luck next year?  Or return again to London?  Not exactly sure what happened to the scheduled tour route but apparently there were some traffic diversions.  It seemed to get even more confusing once it became dark and the last stop of the day meant they were stuffing people on the last bus.  We decided to exit and take the tube back to the flat!  It all worked out just fine since it was getting dark and more difficult to see places.  It was a great first full day!  Tomorrow we head out of town!