Next few days in London

Sunday was a full on day. We started by getting the tube to Westminster and were greeted by Big Ben as soon as we climbed the stairs out of the metro station. We snapped a few photos and then crossed over Westminster bridge to get some photos of the parliament house from across the Thames. We had some lunch, admired the London Eye from the ground and then headed over to Westminster Abbey. As is was a Sunday we didn't go inside because a mass was being held but we checked out the building from the outside, hit up the gift shop and then left deciding to return on a week day so we could have a look around the inside of the cathedral. I had read the guards stationed on horses weren't allowed to respond to any kind of interaction from people walking past so we headed in the direction of the Horse Guards and were lucky enough to arrive just as they were starting a changing of the guard. We stayed watching the whole thing (which seemed to involve a lot of guards standing around) and took a few photos and a couple of videos of the marching. Once it was all over one solo guard came out of the gates and stood in front of the gates on the side walk, the poor  guy got swamped by tourists milling all around him taking photos. The guy did an awesome job of staring straight ahead and not responding (or even moving) at all despite his very uncomfortable looking hat.
We walked over to Trafalgar Square and then on to Leicester square. We walked through a park and had a look at one of the sides of Buckingham Palace on the walk down to the palace Ewen attempted to feed several squirrels. we seemed the only people to be getting excited by squirrels running around the park.
That night we had our first meal in a traditional English pub, we both had fish and chips and Ewen tried English ale. The fish and chips were only ok, nothing compared to the flake from the Borough fish shop. Later on we went to the movies and saw 'Scott Pilgrim Vs the World'

Me at Westminster Parliament building

Westminster from across the Thames

London Eye

Westminster Abbey... hands down best Abbey I've ever seen

Ewen very excited about a red bus

Changing of the Horse Guards

Ewen kissing a lion in Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square

Ewen trying to feed cake to a squirrel

Buckingham Palace

Ewen at Piccadilly Circus

China town of London

Ewen's very first traditional English Ale

On Monday the tubes were closed due to a strike so we decided to brave the buses which turned out to be really easy to figure out. And we got to ride at the top of a red double decked bus sitting right at the front. It was a nice way to see the streets of London and watch people wandering the streets. We met Ewen's Uncle Andrew for lunch at Millennium bridge near the Tate Modern and after lunch he took us for a walk around the outside of St Paul's cathedral and then around some side streets of London. He showed us the Bank of England which is where the Dad in Mary Poppins worked. After Andrew headed home me and Ewen wandered over to Spitafield Market but it was mostly closed. We had a look in a few shops and then ended up walking home as the buses were full of people who had actually done some work that day.

Me and Ewen on our first double decked red bus ride

View from the bus window

Tuesday was our planning day, we spent most of the morning and half of the afternoon working out how to fit everything in that we want to do whilst in England. The basic plan is to hire a car for around 2 weeks to travel around the south of England and then hire another car a few weeks later with Ewen's friend, James to drive to Scotland and back. Then me and Ewen are going to fly to Ireland (and probably hire yet another car) and after about 3 weeks fly back to London and then have a week or so in London before we fly home just in time for Christmas!!
We did eventually leave the house around 4pm and went to Leicester square because we wanted to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert. In the end we couldn't find anyone selling tickets cheap enough for us so we decided to leave that for another night. After walking around a bit we had another pub dinner and then I'm ashamed to say we went to the movies again. This time we saw 'Going the distance'.
Don't worry we do some proper sight seeing again the next day :-)

Super oily lasagna for dinner

The mushy peas that came with Ewen's dinner