London down...next up: PARIS!

Hello Hello.

Just got back from London on Sunday. It was BEAUTIFUL to be there for the fall weather. Our first day was cool but sunny and we got to enjoy the beautiful changing leaves and smell autum in the air! Our hostel was about a 15 minute walk from Buckingham Palace so we walked there, and then continued to Westminster Abbey, and then followed the River Thames all the way to tower bridge, stopping at a haunted house along the way, and got the ¨Tube¨ from there to go home and put our Halloween costumes on! ...you can get an idea of our walk by looking at this map. Out hostel was on Edgeware road, just up from Marble Arch, in the upper left hand corner.

I will also load pictures on to Kodak, but I want to wait until I can get some pictures from Morgan and Andrea as well.

So Friday we walked around, Friday night went out to a bar/club in our costumes (Cats, from the musical... I was Mr. Mistoffeleees.... it was an interesing choice. ) Saturday we walked back to Buckingham Palace to see a changing of the guard ceremony. It was packed. And not THAT cool. So we aggressively took some pictures and then left to ¨warm up¨at a pub (our catch phrase for the day... ¨I think it´s time to stop and warm up¨) haha.

So we strolled around in the drizzle on Saturday, warming up in various pubs until we were preeetttttyyy warm and then found a place to just stay in for the night since it was pouring.

Sunday we left at around 3 from London, had to get to the airport an hour away though (those cheap flights never take you to real airports) In the morning we strolled some more and then went to Madam Trassaud´s famous wax museum...which was HUGE and also had a haunted house in it. So it was expensive but deinitely worth the money because I got way more than expected. I only have a few pictures because all of our cameras were dead at this point...SO inconvenient... but Morgan should have some more and when she shares her pictures, I´ll send some along.

It was a MIRACLE how we caught the bus to get to the airport. It took us FOREVER to find online where we could catch this bus, when we could catch it, the Sunday schedule, if we could pay the driver or if we had to go to an office...ugh! Then we had it 80% figured out and decided we didn´t have time to think anymore and just needed to go. So we wandered in the very wrong direction and eventually desperately grabbed a taxi and told him to take us to the address the website had given us, hoping that the address for thus bus stop (since when to bus stops have addresses?) was legit. We get there and see a bus ¨To Luton Airport¨pulling away and we say ¨Noooooo!!!!¨ and make a sad face at the driver. He points behind him and we see another bus pulling out as well and do the same thing, and thankfully a woman stopped the driver, he stopped for us, we could pay him on the spot, we had enough money left, and got to the airport JUST IN TIME to check in and RUN onto our flight. I´m sure you had to be there to appreciate the full stressfulness of this afternoon, but it was CRAZY lucky.

Now I leave Thursday morning from Barcelona at 3 am and then to the Girona airport and to Paris. eek! Will definitely charge my camera battery and let you know how all that goes.

Have gotten nice letters from Bobs, Olivia, and Dan in the mail. Thanks guys :-D And most of all, thanks for the package, mom!! There are still a few sunchips left in the bag stashed in my bedside table. :)

Hope everyone is happy and healthy back in the US. Love to all

-Karen