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June 23 - our 2 year anniversary. We are blessed. I am thankful for my husband. And it's pretty cool to be celebrating our anniversary in London. :)

British Library - we saw the Magna Carta, Charlotte Bronte's own handwriting of Jane Eyre, Handel's 'Messiah', Beethoven's 5th - both in the musician's own handwriting, scribbles and spelling errors and all. We even saw pieces of paper (such as an envelope) with the Beetle's handwriting of song lyrics in the brainstorming process. I wasn't too excited originally to go to this library, but actually quite enjoyed it. There's a lot of history in one building - similar to many sights in London



We also went for a stroll - ate at one of our favorite pubs and then found an amazing gelatto ice cream place, got some Tiramisu flavored gelatto and ate it on the steps of Trafalgar Square in front of the National Gallary.

We said good-bye to our B&B hotel - the Jesmond Dene...a homey place that served tasty English breakfasts with tea and coffee each morning.


And we came to our final hotel - a Holiday Inn near Heathrow Airport. It was so high-tech that when we walked in, the TV said, "Welcome Kent Hendricks..." - pretty nifty...and a little freaky.
It was definitely spacier and more convenient - a nice place to stay on our last night, but we were glad we weren't here during our whole stay.

We got up the next morning at 3:00am to get ready and leave by 3:30 in a taxi. Our flight didn't leave until 6:40, but we wanted to be there early for an international flight. It turns out that we didn't really have to be there until 5...oh well. We were 2nd in line. :)

We flew to France on our first flight, went through security again (where they took my knitting needles...I'm still a little bitter about it: "Ma'am - these are forbidden in Paris." Stupid Paris), I bought myself Toblerone chocolate to make myself feel better about my knitting needles being taken from me...and then we flew for 10 hours from France to Seattle. Since I couldn't knit and was too tired to read, I ended up watching 3 1/2 (almost 4) movies: Madagascar 2, The Reader, Valkayrie and most of Last Chance Harvey.

Kent's parents picked us up at the Seattle airport around noon (8pm London time) and we stopped at Panera for some lunch, then Starbucks for some caffeine, and then made it home around 4pm (midnight London time). We managed to stay up until around 6:30/7 pm and finally went to bed. Kent had to get up to work today, and I got up soon after he left after a good night's 11-hr sleep. :)

Still tired today, but feeling a bit more rested and thankful for all the good memories in London.

It's good to be home.

Buckingham Palace & the Changing of the Guard
Stroll through St. James' Park
Dinner at Lucy's House with friends

Tower of London - place of death and torture.

Just gives you warm fuzzies, doesn't it? Kent wondered if, similarly, thousands would come to see Guantanamo in a couple hundred years...

Breakfast, stood in line to get tickets for the Les Misérables musical, went to the British Museum to see exhibits from Egypt, Rome, Athens, and more, went to see Les Misérables and ate dinner at an old pub (1667) that was a favorite of Charles Dickens. It was a great day.



One of my favorite memories thus far on our trip was the musical Les Misérables. P-H-E-N-O-M-E-N-A-L. The singing was amazing and the stage props were increadible. It's hard to put into words, but let's just say I'd highly recommend it to anyone thinking about seeing it in London any time soon!

The pub was antique - really neat. It was quite dark inside. We sat on really old and really uncomfortable benches that looked like they were the originals. We ate fish n' chips and drank really good, really smooth beer.

Kent and I both agreed that this day is going to be hard to beat.

Original plan: Get up around 6, get ready, eat breakfast at 7:30 and leave to catch the 9:00 bus tour that ends up at Buckingham Palace in time for the changing of the guard and meet up with a friend for lunch.

Actual events: Shelly forgets to actually switch the alarm button on her travel clock from 'set' to 'on' so Kent and Shelly don't end up getting out of bed until 8:20 - just short of the 9:00 hour that ends breakfast service at our B&B. Bummer.

Plan B: Return to the National Gallery to see more paintings, meet Lucy (aka "Lady Lucy" from my previous trip) - a friend I haven't seen in about 5 years - for lunch at a restaurant called "Giraffe", walk along the Thames (pronounced 'Tames') River, go to Café Nero for coffee, go to another Cathedral where Shakespeare attended for a period of time, walk through an open air market, take the tube back to our B&B. Relax.


Lots more to see, lots more to do - not much time to do it.

This morning, Kent and I went downstairs for a full English breakfast including orange juice, toast in the fancy divider-thingy, sausage, bacon (which looked like thick pieces of ham to me), an egg and beans complete with coffee and tea. It was so good to have the real English tea with milk and sugar again! It tasted just as I remembered it (for those of you who don't know, I traveled to England with my youth group the summer after my senior year to work at a youth camp through Young Life).

After having our fill, we headed back to our room to map out our day. We decided to head to Westminster Abbey and then take a walking tour by the Thames River. We had a late, tasty and budget-friendly lunch at a pub called "The Lorde Moon of the Mall" by Trafalgar Square. We ended our journey at the British National Gallery to look at artwork from the 13th-20th centuries. Pretty amazing. We saw works of Claude, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Monet and Van Gogh, among others. Here are a handful of pictures from our day:



Kent and I are enjoying our time together just the two of us. We have a lot of sights yet to see and are looking forward to the adventures ahead of us!