Kensington, the eye & ducks

Tuesday in London and it was a Very full day. We awoke to realize that it was 10:30 am already and we still wanted to do so many things here. Jet lagged we forced ourselves out the door and to Starbucks to open our eyes. Next, bleary eyed we hopped on the tube and went the wrong way twice! We made it to Kensington Palace where Princess Diana + Prince Charles lived until their divorce. The garden there was beautiful and we wished we had more time to explore this place. But lacking time to really explore everything sufficiently, we booked a ride on the "duck tour." We did a duck tour in Boston last May and loved it, so we knew we'd see all the London highlights and we did. We quacked our way past the Scotland Yard, MI5 and MI6 (think James Bond), into the Thames River, and all the other big spots. Did you know Big Ben is actually named for the huge bell inside its tower?

Moving along we were surprised that both our girls found the courage to ride on the "London Eye" and marveled and their instant freedom in moving around in the capsule that took us around the wheel. By the way, it takes 30 minutes to complete one revolution on the wheel. We met another couple on board there from San Diego... Imagine that!

We made a quick stop to see the architectural beauty on the outside of Westminster Abby, but we arrived too late to see the inside. I don't know if our pictures will do it justice.

Our next stop will go down in Taylor's journal as a BIG highlight... Straight out of the Harry Potter book we found the train platform at King's Cross train station marked 9 3/4 and took a few pictures. It was completely setup for tourists too as they had half of a luggage cart embedded in the wall just for picture taking by Potter fans.

Lastly, we ate dinner at a local italian restaurant where the service was very attentive. The owner spoke more than 5 languages and the couple dining next to us was from Portugal. We had such a nice experience talking with everyone in their that we didn't leave until 10 pm!

It's now too late to see any more of London on this trip and we're getting excited to meet up with the Lim family again tomorrow to fly to Brussels. We'll have one day to see the big highlights there before reaching our ultimate stop in Rwanda. For now we'll keep practicing the "Queen's English" and laughing at one another... Cheerio Chaps!

Ps - I tried the tikka chicken for lunch Jacquie and you were right! Thanks for the comment yesterday!