London calling

Jon and I managed to find a few days to ourselves and hopped over to London for a quick visit. It was kind of a whirlwind tour of the city, but man, it was awesome. London, by far, is one of my favorite places we've been.

The first day we were there, we got off the plane, and headed to our hotel. We stayed at this nice little place in the Kensington/Chelsea area of London. Garden View Hotel lived up to its name, overlooking a tiny little garden park. The place was clean, quiet, offered free breakfast and was just a few minutes from the Underground. Once we checked in and got settled, we went on a four hour bike tour of the city with Fat Tyre Bike Tours (yup, the same company we toured Paris with). The tour was good, but our guide was mediocre at best. Who knows, maybe he was just having an off day. By the end of the tour I was exhausted! Being four months pregnant and cycling around a city in 70 degree weather, probably wasn't the best idea, but whatevs, it was still fun. We got to see a lot of fun things, but a lot of the typical sights, like Buckingham Palace was in full Jubilee preparation, so the views were obstructed. Ah well, at least we got to see the guards with the fuzzy hats.

On the second day, we celebrated my birthday! We did the Making of Harry Potter, a studio tour where the movies were filmed. That was the highlight of my day, hands down. Warner Brothers had sets like the Great Hall, the Gryffindor Common Room, Dumbledore's office, and costumes from the movies displayed like pros. I took gobs of pictures (probably close to 100 of just the tour, it was a little ridiclous. I was like a kid in a candy shop). The coolest part of the tour was seeing the "small" scale model of Hogwarts (pictured at bottom right) that was built for the movies. It was used for the incredible sweeping landscape scenes in the movies. They also had it rigged so the lighting in the room changed from day to night, and with the change of time, the castle changed as well - more candles and lights peaking out from the windows. It was  incredible. We topped off my birthday with a spin around the London Eye, which gave us killer views of London. The weather was perfect for it - sun just starting to set and no clouds. We also managed to find a burger place that rocked my socks. I know, I know, eating burgers in London? Seriously though, this place Byron's served me the best burger, onion rings and chocolate milkshake I've had since we moved to this side of the pond. Yum.

Our last day was actually spent outside of London in Salisbury. We picked up a bus tour in London and headed to Stonehenge for the afternoon. The weather cooperated and only rained on our way back to the city. This ancient heritage site is as every bit amazing as we imagined. It's so massive and incredible, and no one really knows that much about it. They do know that it was built in stages spanning hundreds of years, and what kind of stones were used, and where they originated from, but aside from that, much of Stonehenge remains a mystery. Pretty cool stuff. Completely worth the 4 hour round trip from London.

This trip to London provided us with some quality time with each other, which is much needed with the upcoming planned chaos of Jon opening a bakery and the arrival of the munchkin in November. A bit of babymoon, if you will. It was also probably one of the best planned trips we've taken, which (duh) makes the visit much more fun. Getting around London was a piece of cake on the Underground. Seriously, more cities with mass transit need to study London's Underground/Tube/Overground system - we didn't get lost once! London was a total success and I cannot wait to go back to visit (once the Olympics and the Jubilee are all said and done).