Way to go....: First day in London!

First day - out the door by 9.30am (less expensive trains etc) and off we went. Dave knew exactly how to get to places so it was a breeze (again!).
1) the London Eye
yep - I did it. Only 15 min queue wait, and in I went . goes up slowly so not bad, also doesn't swing!
Here are the views! Great to start the London experience by finding places. Takes about 1/2 hour to go all the way round.

this is me with my eyes down, bit nervous at the start but realised it wasn't too bad.

this is what the crowd looked like down below. I wouldn't look!

Me at the end, feeling much better. Even stood up and looked out by the window!

Just by the by, this is Big Ben chiming at 12 noon!

2) London Aquarium. This was right beside the eye, so thought we should do it. go to see some Nemo's and jellyfish.

they had some poor penquins there, in a large pool area. It reminded me of Happy feet when he was put into an aquarium. One penguin hopped in the pool and played peep -po with me! He must've been so bored that he had to play games with tourists for amusement.

3) Westminister Abbey - this is near the other two. Was pretty amazing inside - so, so old. Was started in the 600AD's I think. I kept trying to picture Wills wedding, and what was where but couldn't so now need to go back to my DVD and check. We had a audio guide which was brilliant. Kept you well informed of the diff. crypts at the sides and who was buried where etc. Amazing ceiling as well. Unfortunately no photos allowed, so can only show you the outside, but we spent at least 2 hours in there. At the end there was a special Jubilee exhibition of the times when the Queen has visited over the years. Quite interesting to see how she has grown up to the present day.

just had to throw in another picture of me and Big Ben.

4) Buckingham Palace - what a performance to get here! supposedly you can go through St. James Park, or up the mall. Well, its now 4.30pm, my feet are killing me, but we were in the area, so it was a case of ... we have to do it.

Firstly, ST. James Park and the Mall are now closed off to the public till the end of Sept.! for the Olympics mainly (they are having beach volleyball and road cycling races around there). All fine for them, but it meant we had to walk this bloody great long detour to one side, down to Green Park (at the side of the Palace) through this greenery and low and behold there it was! Cars have been detoured as well, so quite easy to take photos once we were there. There is a huge statue of Queen Victoria in the front, looking decidedly old and grumpy as she looks down the Mall.

this poor guy was marching up and down behind the gates, (not in front of them now). Dave took a close up, and thinks he can't see out from under his hat! It was quite a warm day (even tho cloudy) so he must've been boiling!