We're in London!

I'm writing this post from London! We've been having a great time. We're currently chilling at our friends' flat (that's British for apartment). Jonathan's playing chess with Patrick, something that he likes to play but doesn't get to enough since I can never remember the rules. I thought I'd take the chance to do a little recap of our trip so far. I'll warn you though, this may not be the most exciting post though since we've only been here for a couple days.

My flight here was actually quite nice. It wasn't a full flight so I ended up having three chairs to myself so I could lay down. I was very grateful because it was a 9 hour overnight flight so what sleep I got would be the only sleep I got for that night. I watched Brave which I had been dying to watch forever. It was really cute. I got maybe 5ish hours of sleep/restfulness, then watch a few episodes of friends and big bang theory, and deboarded and got through customs smoothly. It was about an hour drive to the flat which was nice because I got to see a lot of the city. Patrick was at the flat when I got there and we had a fun day together. We went to a wine bar for lunch and then he made dinner for us at the flat. We mostly just chatted all day and caught up. It was really nice and I was glad to have a chill day since I was still jetlagged.

Jonathan had a similar flight the next day. You may wonder why we flew on separate flights. His flight was set up by his company since he's being sent here for work. So since we only had to pay for my ticket I was just looking for the cheapest day available. Flying a day earlier was cheaper and it was a direct flight. So it was kind of an obvious decision. Meanwhile, Jonathan got to fly first class! He said that his flight was bumpy so he didn't get as much sleep but he had a four course meal with all the wine he wanted. Lucky him! He got to the flat around noon and I was still asleep! I apparently needed to catch up on sleep more than I thought! We took it easy that day too but we managed to head up towards London bridge and wander around Borough Market. Borough Market was very impressive and had all sorts of different things. As you may know,  we're kind of foodies so this was right up our alley. We also checked out Southwark Cathedral, the oldest Gothic cathedral in London. It just happened to be right next time the market. Of course there are historic buildings and churches everywhere you turn in London.

Sunday we explored Greenwich which is close by where Patrick and Allie live. It is a cute town with a lot of shopping. We explored the Old Navy College, walked by the house where the queen grew up, and checked out the observatory. The observatory had a beautiful view but it was pretty cold since it's at the top of a hill. In the evening we headed to Southwark and went to mass at St. George's Cathedral. It was a beautiful church.

Today we did a free tour that covered a lot of the must do items in London. It was an awesome tour! We saw Hyde Park, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abby, Buckingham Palace, and lots else. We had a lot of fun and we learned a lot more than we would have if we had just ventured out on our own. For instance, did you know that a different flag is flown over Buckingham Palace whether the queen is in or not? They used to only fly a flag over the palace is the queen was in. However, when Princess Diana died, the queen was out and since there was not a flag flying at half mast there became a controversy. People thought that the queen was showing her distain towards the princess by not flying a flag so now they always fly a flag, just fly a different one depending. We finished the tour at a local pub with other people that were on the tour with us. They were travelers from all over: Germany, Brazil, Japan, Canada, and Argentina. We had a lot of fun and had some great fish and chips.

We have a lot more to see here in London but we've had a lot of fun so far!

-Chelsey