London, England, May 24 & 25

We managed to get to the airport on time and get through security. Thankfully there were no x-ray scans or pat downs. Don't know if it had anything to do with the long lines, but we got through fairly quickly which made us glad. Smooth flights, but they seemed long. But like a good tourist I prepared for my England vacation by watching Emma. :) I wanted to get pictures of the sunrise from the plane, but I was the only on on the plane that wanted the window open and wasn't trying to get some sleep, and it was really bright. So I left it down.

But here's London! After arriving and trying to figure many things out, like where our hotel was and how to get there, we managed to spend a few hours walking the streets of London. With half the world.

This is St. Paul's cathedral. Beautiful building, but like all the cathedrals around here, no photography inside. But you can take my word for it, it was lovely.

These guys cracked me up. This is a small patch of grass outside the cathedral, and I guess they thought it was the beach.

What the...? Yeah, I don't know what that is either.

Westminster Abbey! Well worth the admission prices to go in! But again, no photography inside.

Caleb: "I don't know what that is, but I think I need one!"

This guy was awesome! He was extremely friendly and fairly witty. Fun to talk to. One thing that was notable: we got to talking about Obama who was driving around London that day, and even though you could tell that this guys wasn't a big fan, he still tried to find things that were positive to say about our president. Not always an easy feat. He said that Obama was a wonderful speaker and seemed like a very pleasant person. I guess that's how he was elected in the first place.

This is only part of the crowd that showed up for the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We didn't actually have thing on our list of places to go and things to see, but we happened to be walking along the right road at the right time and this is what we saw. It was unbelievable how many people there were. And only a few were close enough to witness the actual changing of the guard.

Here's your picture, Emma! Buckingham Palace. And yes, I forgot to get in the picture myself. Sorry.

My always cool and forever awesome brother! In case you didn't know.

More later. It's one o'clock here and I'd better get to bed.