England

Hi Everyone,
Sorry I have not been able to update regularly. Anyways, I am in Birmingham, England now visiting my Aunt Carol and Uncle John (my Grandpa Clark's sister). But first I have to finish up the London part of our trip! So on Wednesday we had a pretty packed day. We started off at the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, which happens everyday at 11AM. It was really crowded so it was a little bit difficult to see, but what I did see was really neat!! Then we did the tour of Buckingham Palace...and I really loved it! My favorite part was seeing the dining room where the Queen hosts her State Dinners. You should have seen this table (they had it all set-up for the tours). Each setting had 6 glasses and they said they measure out the silverware so that everything is perfectly even!! All together we saw about 12-15 different rooms in the palace an then the garden. If anyone is going to be in London I would definitely recommend this tour...worth the money! Let's see, after the Buckingham Palace tour we headed over (acutally ran over b/c we were running late) to the base of the London Eye where we got on the Duck Tour! I will have to post pictures of this in case you have never seen these "ducks." They are basically amphibious vehicles that were used in WWII. They are now painted bright yellow and look like a Duck!! Haha. My Dad and Hannah did the Boston Duck Tour in March. Anyways, they took us all around London with a really good tour guide. We spent 45 minutes on land and 30 min the Thames River. We finished off the day with dinner and then Wicked!! I LOVED Wicked so much! The music was great :) So yesterday (Thursday) we went to Westminister Abbey in the morning and then headed to Birmingham on the train in the afternoon. My Aunt Carol met us at the train station and then made us a really good dinner...I think this was George's first home cooked meal since he came to Europe so I think he quite enjoyed it!! Today (Friday) my Uncle John was so nice and took the day off of work to take us around! We went to Litchfield were there is a really old Gothic-style Cathedral. I think they said it was built in 600!! After that we went to Ashbourne and had lunch at a local pub. George had the traditional Shepard's Pie (really good) and I had a Pork and Stuffing sandwich (also really good). We worked off our lunch by renting bikes and riding through the hills. The bike path used to be a train track and has since been redone for biking. Anyways, it was a really beautiful ride!!! Again, I will have to put up pictures later when I am on my laptop!! Tomorrow we head to Dumfires, Scotland to see my Grandma Clark's nephew Stuart! George is hoping for a deep-fried Mars Bar :)