London - A honeymoon 3.5 years in the making.

David and I recently returned from a trip to London, England. We were there for 6 days. We went for our honeymoon. Really it was supposed to be a graduation celebration, but since his thesis was postponed by another semester we decided to make this our honeymoon. We never went on one after the wedding since we got married on Halloween and he had to go back to class the Monday after the ceremony. Anyway - I am not going to put a whole lot of detail in this post just because we want to keep the memories for ourselves, but I do want to share some of the pictures.

I'm sure that everyone has seen most of the places that we saw, but I know that there are several friends and family out there that are anxious to hear about the trip. I'll give a brief recap of the things we did and then I'll just overwhelm you with pictures. That way you can either read it all and look at pictures or just skip right to the pictures!

We left Knoxville on Monday and came home on Monday. We arrived on Tuesday in London. We didn't really know what to do so we wandered around Kensington Gardens before we met some friends for drinks. It was an early night for us. Too much jet lag! Wednesday morning we got up and went on a sightseeing tour of London. We stopped by St. Paul's Cathedral (which was amazing and I lit a candle for my Gram), drove around Trafalgar Square and by Parliament and Westminster Abby, went to see the changing of the guards, and rode around a bit more. That afternoon we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum and then to Harrod's (completely overwhelming).

Thursday we got up and headed over to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre by way of Borough Market and piggies. After the Globe, where we saw King Lear being rehearsed in Belarusian, we went to the Tate Modern. We walked across the Millennium Bridge and then went to the Saatchi Gallery where we perused wonderful photographs. We had afternoon tea and then we went and did a little shopping. After that we went and had some dim sum for dinner. Friday we went on this tour called England in a Day. We hit Stonehenge, Bath, and Stratford-Upon-Avon. David is a huge Shakespeare fan, so he was thrilled with two Shakespeare events in two days! It was a long day and a little disappointing because we didn't have enough time to do much in either Bath or Stratford. But it was an experience!

Saturday we wandered in Notting Hill at the Portobello Road Market. We did shopping for ourselves and family. Then we wandered around near Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster, and ended up at the ICA where we saw some video installations, walked through Trafalgar Square, and made our way to see a show called 'What the Butler Saw.' It was a very British play that was very entertaining! After the play we headed over to the Tower of London. It was beautiful all lit up at night.

Sunday, our last day in London, we went to the Museum of London. It was great. Better than expected. We grabbed our last pint at a pub, saw some pigeons doing an odd mating dance (or fighting over chicken bones) and took the obligatory tourist photos in red phone booths. This run down doesn't describe how much fun we had or how meaningful the trip was, but we had an amazing time. Really, everyone just wants to see the pictures, I know!

As an aside, since this is supposed to be a blog about fitness, I couldn't have done this trip two years ago when I was 35 pounds heavier. We walked an average of 20,000 steps every day that we were there. And we walked quickly. We also took a lot of stairs in the Underground. There's no way that I could have done that 2 years ago. I'm thankful that I am in better shape and that I was able to enjoy our trip with only minimal foot discomfort. I do sit at a desk for my job and my poor tootsies just aren't used to all that walking!

Now here's what you've been waiting for!

Kensington Palace

The Cask and Glass where we met Rebecca and Tim.

The Queens Arms - Dinner on Tuesday

Such a long day, but I actually really like this picture.

The best fish and chips we had.

Wild boar and apple sausages with mashed potatoes.

Two crazy kids.

Yes, it's a spiral staircase!

St. Paul's Cathedral reflected in a sphere.

St. Paul's.

A statue to commemorate those brave souls from WWII.

Honest Abe.

Clarence House, home of Prince Charles and Camilla.

A guard, obviously. He was giving us the side eye stair though.

St. James Park. Beautiful.

David in St. James Park. That's the London Eye over his shoulder.

Practicing for the Queen's Jubilee.

Changing of the Guards

Lunch. Yum!

Buckingham Palace

Big Ben

Parliament

The Victoria & Albert Museum

I really love this shot of Big Ben for some reason.

Prince David. Well, he was dressing up.

One of the many windows decorated at Harrods for the Queen's Jubilee.

Peter Pan in Hyde Park

Tourist Trap. We didn't go in though.

Piggies!!!

The Globe Theatre. A Timeline of Shakespeare's Plays.

I really like this statue.

Crazy kids with Tower Bridge in the way background!

David outside the Globe.

Street Artist

Stonehenge

The only picture really that someone else took of us on our whole trip.

Stonehenge from another angle.

The best pasty I've ever eaten (sorry, Mom.)!! I was just a bit excited!

We didn't go in, but here's a photo of the entrance to the Baths in Bath.

The Bath Cathedral

A jester down the street from Shakespeare's birth place.

That's the place, right there.

The man himself.

David and our 'England in a Day' tour guide.

Notting Hill - Portobello Road Market

My keepsakes.

I think I have a thing for Big Ben.

This is one of my favorite shots.

Two of my favorite guys.

Westminster Abby

Westminster Abby

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge

David playing with exposure.

The old Roman walls that used to encircle the city of London.

A gladiator

David in a replica 12th - 13th century home at the museum of London.

Our last pint on vacation.

Obligatory phone booth photos!

We had to take a picture. The sign in London says y'all.

I hope you enjoyed the photos. It's not near as much fun as actually being there, but we had a blast. If you haven't been, go. It really is wonderful. I'm convinced we need to move there! We'll see what happens with that.