London

Thursday August 31st we took another train from York to London. 

This time the ride was about 3 hours. We were only in London a day and half so once more we jam packed what we could into the short time we were there.  

When we got to London we took a cab to our hotel and dropped off our luggage. Then we walked 1/2 a mile to our first museum. 

 Madame Tussads Wax Museum. 

This was one of my favorite places. It was the perfect "selfie" museum. There seriously were thousands of wax figures to see and take pictures with. The first part of the museum was full of actors. 

I love George Clooney! 

Morgan Freeman is one of my favorite too!

Along time ago.... Brittney Spears was my favorite singer ever! 

I owned every single cd she released. 

Every once in a while one of her songs comes on the radio and I'm always amazed how well I remember the words. Oh how I loved her!

I had to take this one for my Dad. He loves John Wayne. 

We grew up watching his movies. 

Bruce Willis was one Kory let me take his picture with. 

A few months before our big vacation we watched the Sherlock Holmes series.

So had to capture his picture too. 

There was another room dedicated to super heroes.

We saw the Hulk, Captain America, Spider Man and many more.

Kory put on the blades and stood next to the Wolverine.

There was another room dedicated to Star Wars. I am not a Star Wars fan. I have not watched all the newest and latest movies but I do remember these 2 guys from watching the Star Wars movies as a kid. They were always my favorite. 

The museum had a little ride (think the Mermaid  ride at Disney Land again) that showed and told us about important people in London history. There was a Sherlock Holmes tour and a 7 minute 3D Super Hero cartoon to watch. We easily spent 3 hours in the museum. It was totally worth the 35 pounds each we spent. 

For lunch we stopped by a little Korean shop that served us food outside. I ordered rice, chicken and their house salad. 

 So yummy! 

After lunch we walked back to our hotel where we had about an hour to get ready for our "date night". We had tickets to see Le Mis.

Before the play I had never seen the movie, the play or even listened to the music. 

I had no idea what the story line was. 

It was so awesome to see it for the first time live.

The actors were great and the music was just awesome!

Friday September 1 we had another fun filled day planned ahead. We took the tram downtown where we bought ourselves a hop on/hop off bus tour to help us get to where we wanted to go. 

Our first stop was the White Towers. 

We were given a tour around the grounds by this man. 

There is so, so much history here. This tower is where the two princes went missing. There are many theories about what happened to them but it is believed their Uncle killed them so that he could be King after there father, King Edward IV died at war. 

The White tower is also where Ann Boelyn was imprisoned and later beheaded on the nearby greens by her husband, King Henry VIII. 

The Crown Jewels are also kept here in a different building but for security reasons no cameras were aloud. 

Along the grounds were authentic weapons used to protect the white towers.  

The grounds once had a lion pit.

Pet monkeys use to roam the grounds....

and even an elephant. 

After leaving the white towers, we walked across the Tower Bridge. 

We were hungry and wanting lunch. I really wanted to go to Borough Market for lunch.  

Bourough Market was a pinterest find. 

 The Borough Market is like a huge out door flea market back home but for food. 

There were a ton of people! 

Sea food on ice? 

I'm not sure we'd ever see this in the states! 

Cheese anyone?

 For lunch we bought a pork sandwich. 

The man cut a piece of pork that was rotating on a spickett. So  yummy! Before I could take a picture a bird flying above us took a poop on Kory's hand. Luckily it missed the sandwich but I was laughing to hard to get a picture. 

After lunch we made our way back onto the bus. Next stop was Hyde Park.

Hyde Park in one of the largest parks in London about 350 acres. On Sunday's LDS meetings use to take place here outside on the grounds. 

So, so green.

 I loved the covered walkways. 

 All around Hyde Park were these chairs. We wondered where they came from? We didn't see very many people using them while walking by. So we didn't know if someone was setting up for an event or what.

Finally we came across this sign. 

Hmmmmm......interesting!

We walked all the way through Hyde Park to get to Buckingham Palace.

There were a ton of people walking around and taking pictures. I did manage to capture some detail on one of the pillars. If we wanted to we could have waiting in line for 2+ hours to be given a tour inside. We decided to move on. We had seen enough. After all the Queen and her family don't even live here!

In front of Buckingham Palace was this huge statue. 

 After Buckingham Palace we went in search of our hop on/hop off bus.

Our next stop was the M&M World. This building was 4 stories tall full of M&M memorabilia.

I love M&M's. 

It's my kids favorite too!

 I so wanted to buy each of us our own m&m mug. But I was worried they'd get broken on our way home so I didn't. 

Every floor had m&m's. They had every color, shape and flavor.

So fun to spend some time just wandering around! 

After leaving the M&M World we decided we had better stay on our bus until we got back to our hotel. We had big plans for the night and didn't want to be late. So as we were driven by the different touristy sites I snapped pictures. 

I loved the "thumbs up" art work. 

Bird Head dancers

A man holding an elephant up by it's trunk. 

Beautiful buildings. 

This is London's Eye and you can see Big Ben underneath it. 

Not the best picture! 

I wanted to ride the "eye" but we ran out of time!

We had tickets that night to my all time favorite Opera. Not that I had seen it yet.... but I knew it would be my favorite! I loved it!

 I have always loved the music. When I was a teenager learning to play the piano I wanted to learn how to play it's music. It's what kept me practicing without being asked! 

It was a phenomenal night!