First two days in London

Hello from London. We are really on a weird sleep schedule! It is 5 in the morning of our 2nd night and none of us has been able to sleep since 2. We are just waiting on the sun to come up so we can go out. Today we are going to force ourselves into a schedule! Yesterday we slept until 3 in the afternoon – 12 hours. Very strange!

Here is a little synopsis of our trip so far… arrived at 7 am on Friday morning (midnight our time). We went down to a little place called Patisserie Valerie where James and I had eaten many breakfasts the last time we were here. We all had English Breakfast which is basically baked beans, sausage, egg, tomato and toast. It was so yummy! We were so tired we took a long nap and when we woke up the sun was already down. It goes down here at 4 PM. We went out to see the Christmas lights near Piccadilly Circus and walked over to Leicester Square. Lots of people were out having fun and partying. We ate dinner in a little café and then came home. On the way home we went to a grocery store and bought food for the flat. James stocked up on British candy like Double Decker candy bars, Maltesers (like Whoppers but better says he), Fruit Pastilles and other stuff. James has a fondness for British candy because he ate so much of it growing up here! Anyway, it is kind of fun to grocery shop in another country.

Saturday after waking at 3 PM, we made reservations and took a ride on the London Eye. It’s this huge ferris wheel that was built for the millennium celebration. It has glass capsules from which you can see a panoramic view of the city. Since we went up at night it was very nice to see all the city lights below. I thought I would be a little scared of the height but it didn’t bother me. After that we walked across the bridge past roasted chestnut vendors, by the parliament buildings and up to Trafalgar Square where there were carolers. We had dinner in a pub and Forest had a pint of beer! James and I had Pimms which were really good and seemed very festive and seasonal. We came home and I relaxed and read my book, The Namesake, which is very good so far. Oh, one cool thing – in the pub there were these books stacked by the door that said “free” so I took two of them, Sue Grafton novels, I have never read her stuff but my mother-in-law likes her and I used to love reading mysteries! Anyway, they are part of this program called Book Crossing in which books are read and released to be found by another reader. You can go on the website and log where the book has been and see its history.

So far it’s been fun and relaxing but I really hope to see London in the daylight today!