More on London... now that I'm home :)

Well, now that I am home maybe I should post again. :) Somehow I never seemed to get around to finding an internet cafe.

In my last post I was still telling about London. Monday morning we headed off to watch the changing of the guards. I know... cheesy tourist stuff as all the British people were quick to tell us, but it was still lots of fun. We got there early enough to get a spot along the fence, so armed with our digital cameras (with good zooms) we waited. And waited. And waited some more... Eventually the night guards showed up and their band and then shortly later the fresh troops came along with their band. I was able to get some really neat pictures while the band played and they marched around. Then it started to rain, but they kept right on playing. And playing. I had thought it was about 1/2 hr to 45 min process. Wrong! It went for close to an hour and a half. I was kind of tired of taking pictures by the time it was over, but I wasn't to wet since we were so packed against the fence. Even if we had wanted to leave earlier it would have been a lot of work to get through the crowd. We survived though and it was worth it even though it is just a tourist thing.
After we finally got out of there we headed as fast as we could to the Tower of London (I have put two picture of it on here). We ony had about 2 1/2 hrs there, but we managed to see a fair amount of it, including the crown jewels which were properly awe inspiring. At least they were to a poor nobady like me. But in all honesty I have to say that I was thinking about how many starving children the price of all those jewels and gold dishes would feed and I did not really enjoy seeing as much as I thought I would.
Around 3 we rushed off to Hyde Park. We then headed over to The Orangery in Kensington Garden (the orange building in the pictures) for high tea. After all being a tea lover I could hardly be in England and not have high tea! It was really fun. We each got our own little pot of tea and were then started off with cucumber sandwiches arranged very artistically on the plate, then we were given a scone with clotted cream butter and strawberry jam. I can truthfully say that scone was the best I have ever eaten. After that we finished off with a piece of orange cake. It was so fun and we got to pretend to be ladies having out afternoon tea. Nevermind that we were in jeans and windbreakers, but so were other people so it was okay.
Katie and I then had to rush back to the hotel to change quickly and head out to see Le Mis. I honestly did not know much of the storyline before that, but I loved it. It was quite fascinating and the music was beautful. I was also was given a student price ticket for this show as well, even though I told them I was not a student. So because I spent a half the money I had been planning, I enjoyed the show even more.
After it got out around 10pm Katie and I decided instead of heading back to the hotel we would go take some pictures of the Tower and the bridge at night. It is the most fairytale looking bridge at night that I have ever seen. I have included a picture of it here. We finally headed home around midnight to try and get some sleep so we would be ready to head off to Dover in the morning. Which I will post about later.