July 5

As mentioned in the previous post, some of the details for London were not recorded while we were there... I have to take the blame for this one, as it goes from Maryanne's handwriting to mine where the gap is. 

I'm generally always right, as many people know... but on July 5, 2012 I was wrong.  Mark that down, people. ;)

7/5 - London 


                                      

Anyway, July 5th was quite an exciting day for us.  Some background for London during this time, they were preparing for the Olympics, so the city was decked out in pink flags marking where events were to take place and the Olympic rings themselves!  It was amazing to be in the city during this time! 

We ended up spending the majority of our day at the Tower of London.  We learned a lot about London's history and got some great views of the London Bridge, which was flaunting its rings, of course!

 

Which one is the real British soldier? Bet you can't tell! 

This one?

Or this one?

We spent the rest of the day walking around and seeing sites like Big Ben, 

 

Westminster Abbey, 

the London Eye, 

 

unfamiliar skylines with new buildings, 

 

and, of course, our favorite: People playing ping pong in a square of the city that probably only Maryanne remembers the name of!

 We weasled our way in and got to play a game and we received comments like, "Wow, they're good!" Can't say I'm surprised.  We drew quite a crowd! If my memory serves me correctly, Maryanne won our game, but I planned to tell the journal that I did... So I won...


After our fun-filled day in London, we made our way back to Rickmansworth.  This is where our journal picks up.

When we returned to Ann's house, we ordered Chinese food and walked to "collect" it.  After dinner, we watched The King's Speech with Ann.  It was nice to have a night off and to watch that movie where it all took place.  After the movie, we talked with Ann for a while.  When she went to bed we did some planning and mistakingly booked a hotel room way outside of our price range.  Hopefully we can fix it.  (Also, before all of this happened we stopped at a park in Rickmansworth that had a tire zip line.  The children who were on it would not share so we did not have a chance to experience it.)

I have two thoughts regarding the aforementioned journal entry: 1. I am anxious to see what we wrote about that overpriced hotel room in future entries... UGH! And 2. I would like to just emphasize just how amazing Ann is!  Here she is pictured below.  I believe Maryanne compared her to Mrs. Doubtfire while we were there.  She was just lovely and so generous and welcoming to us! We loved every minute of our stay with her!