It would seem that neither Chuck nor I sleep as well on trains as we had hoped. Chuck got a little more sleep, but I think I pretty much just snoozed a little. So when we arrived in London at 6:30 this morning, neither of us were feeling very spry. It was still a really interesting experience. Calling the sprayer in our sleeper car a “shower” was generous; you definitely wouldn’t have wanted to try to shampoo your hair there. We couldn’t check into our hotel until 2 pm though, so we cleaned what we could and lugged our luggage over to the hotel to store it while we explored.

Neither Chuck or I had ever spent any time on the south bank of the Thames, so that was our plan for today, starting out at the Tower of London for a quick tour so I could see the crown jewels and check that off my list. I’m glad to have seen them but it was SO CROWDED and the rooms were so dark (to protect the jewels, etc.) that I struggled a bit. It doesn’t help that when I stand still, I still feel like I’m standing on a moving train. The fluid in my inner ears hasn’t received the memo that we’re off the train now. After the jewels, we made a loop around the battlements which I think was the right move because we got a lot of interesting information about the Yeoman Warders that protect the tower and the crown jewels for a mere fraction of the crowd.

Next we did the Rick Steves walking tour of south bank, which was heavy on Shakespeare sites and very interesting. We saw the old church where he used to pray and a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre (the original sadly burned down during a production of Henry VIII… Cannons and wooden theatres don’t mix well). Perhaps my favorite part of the walk was stopping for lunch in Borough Market, a Victorian era “food court” right under the train tracks where rail workers used to take their lunch breaks. We also checked out the Tate Modern (modern art museum) very briefly and walked over the Millennium Bridge. By then we were both struggling to put one foot in front the other and keep our eyes open, so headed back to the hotel to check in and have a much needed rest.

We have tickets tonight for Moulin Rouge on the West End, which will make for a bit of a late night. We headed over early to find dinner and were thrilled to stumble across a Slim Chickens, an Arkansas chain that we both love but don’t have in Austin. It ended up being the perfect comfort food and fuel for our travel weary souls. We’re now enjoying drinks in the lobby of the Piccadilly Theatre while we write our blogs and enjoy live piano music before the show.

Today’s Highlights:

• Beautiful old historic church
• Lunch in a fun open air market
• Finding the below portrait of me from when I had norovirus a couple months ago
• Resting our tired feet
• Slim Chickens!
• Wine and piano
• Anticipation of one of our favorite musicals

Tomorrow’s Proposed Adventures:

• A day-long bus tour to Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge
• Packing for our flight home on Saturday