London itinerary

London was a great trip. The only down side was that Mark and I realized we can survive travelling together, but we are not the most compatible when it comes to traveling styles. As you can imagine I am GO GO GO and see as much as I can in one day until I am physically exhausted. Mark on the other hand tires more quickly and once tired wants to nap. But other then that, things worked out.

We arrived on Sunday, and sadly it had been a red eye and Mark did not sleep at all. I had taken dramamine and slept about 6 hours. We checked in to our hotel at 11am and after breakfast Mark needed a LONG nap (aka 7 hours). We did get up at 8pm and went to dinner finally, which was good.

Monday was our first busy day:
We did a 3 hour walking tour and saw the tower of london, the thames, the millenium bridge, the tate modern, england's bank, knights templar, st. paul's cathedral, monument, and more. At the end we had lunch in the Tate Modern and did a 1 hour tour of the museum for me. We got back to the hotel at 5pm and Mark was exhausted and needed a nap. Sadly, his nap lasted until 1am, and my attempts to wake him for dinner were unsuccessful since he is quite grouchy when tired and sleeping. I was grumbling too when at 4am he tried to wake me up.

Tuesday was more sight seeing: First we walked 1/2 a mile from our hotel to Hyde Park. We wandered the park, so Prince Albert's Memorial, and the Kensington Palace where Princess Diana used to live. We did Parliament, westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the Horse Guards, and the National Gallery, which I LOVED but was even overwhelming for me. There were over 60 rooms of incredible paintings. We did about half in an hour and Mark had to call it quits. Back to the hotel again at 5pm, and what was supposed to be a 2 hour nap for Mark once again turned in to a night's sleep, and grumpy Lindsey was woken up at 5am even though she had gone out for dinner on her own and gone to bed at 10pm.

Wednesday was New Year's Eve. For Mark we started the day trying to find the London Stock Exchange. It has been closed to the public for the last 5 years, but Mark still wanted to locate it. Sadly after 2 hours of searching we gave up. Then we went to the Imperial War Museum for Mark, another boring thing for me, but it is only fair since art museums are boring for him. Sadly for me, we spent 3 hours there...their holocaust exhibit was brilliant, but I would of been done in the museum by 1 hour on my own. unch was at a tasty pub, and we went to the aquarium after for me, but sadly it was 17 pounds (about $25) each, and half the exhibits were closed for renovations, so we scrapped that idea. Mark then had the first successful ONLY 3 hour nap since being New Year's eve I demanded we go out. We went to Soho, not knowing it was the gay district, but Mark found a great restaurant for dinner, and I was not vegan for one night and had a delicious piece of chocolate cake with him for dessert. We walked to Trafalgar Square, which was INSANELY busy, and rang in the new year with the Londoners. Over 200,000 people came along the Thames and the Square to see the fireworks. It was great. And the crowds were insane, but the police had it under control.

Thursday we went out of the city to Windsor Palace since a lot of London things were closed. It was a nice morning trip. Then Mark found a casino near our hotel and went to play poker for the afternoon. He won 90 pounds (almost $150), so we went out for a nice dinner as a treat after.

Friday was our last day. We toyed with the idea of going to Paris via the Chunnel, but after going to buy tickets at the eurostar we found out it was too pricey on the weekends. We shopped for some stuff, and then went home. My watch broke, so while Mark was lazy back at the hotel I went shopping for a new one, and went to try to buy tickets to see the musical Wicked that night, but sadly the night of tickets were again too pricey. So we had some dinner and called it a night. We did have to get up at 4am the next morning for our flight, but even though a lazy day was good, I do wish we had seen more on Friday. I guess my go go go personality can't deal with laziness much.

Our flights on the way back were ok, NYC is always a pain in the ass and the people were so rude. Mark commented taht coming back to the USA was like returning to a third world country. We both loved London so much more. Mark's mom picked us up. Mark's dad had been up all afternoon making vegan chili for us on our return. I joked with Mark that his mom always spoils us, but that I was shocked his dad even spent all day cooking just for me. Mark laughed and said "Well, my parents like everyone, but they especially like you and probably want me to marry you and have lots of babies since you are so successful, smart and pretty, so they are always going out of their way to try to keep you around." How flattering. Now, I want to know, where shall we go together next? ; )