Ok so the above picture that Chris snapped of me makes me laugh ..... I know I was incredibly happy to be back on a bike, in English speaking London, but I can't help but notice how exhausted I look ... even with lashes. But alas, we carry on ... lots to see!! Since we had been there already on Monday night, Chris had a good lay of the land in his brain already so when we set off, he already knew where we were going, roughly ..... picture below - I didn't really notice until now that he wore that shirt .... I remember telling him NO logowear from camp! This is a full break! sneaky...actually, now that I write that, I think we talked about him needing a collared shirt for any shows ....
This shot was for Jenny and Trent .... we saw so much historical war monuments that we knew they would be really interested in ... I hope they get over here at some point in their lives ....
It was a risk snapping this shot, given my balance and dexterity issues, but I just had to capture what a great leader my husband has been on this trip. It has been made very clear that I am most happy planning the locations and setting up the skeleton of our trips ... and then once we hit the ground, he takes over and leads us around it. His ability to remember an area and navigate around it, would have me confused in circles .... here we are, you know, just riding towards the Tower of London ....no big deal ;-) I always felt so safe, and cared for ... this trip was really good for our marriage .... to add to that memory is that my frozen shoulder is really bad at this point in time, and we took our backpacks ... well every transition we had, Chris would take my pack lovingly and carefully on and off my back, watching out that my shoulder didn't bend a certain way. It was a little thing, but it really is the little things .....
London Bridge
And now the Tower of London ..... so much history!
Back on our bikes...... and then an exciting trip for Chris to see the War Rooms ... I was not interested so I continued walking - thinking I would either be meeting up with Louise, an old school friend from Balmoral Hall, or grabbing our theatre tickets for this evening from the last minute box office ... so I continued walking .... Chris had a great time down in the bunkers .....I am so glad he was able to do that ....
Everything is gorgeous in London .....
I ran into the National Art Gallery ....
After a fun jaunt through the gallery, I kept walking towards Lancaster Square for show tickets ... I was determined to see a show every night we were in London! So tonight's show was WICKED!! And it was wicked amazing! I don't think I have ever seen a more impressive, and moving show in my life ....I have my parents to thank for this one as they gave Chris and I a very generous anniversary gift that helped us to buy the tickets without too much extra worry about the cost .... what a show .....
On the way TO the show, we grabbed bikes as we hadn't realized the theatre was pretty far away from where we purchased our tickets! Turns out there are TWO Apollo Theatres .... one Apollo and one Apollo Victoria .... so on first search, the theatre was only a few minutes away, on a more thorough search, it was a LONG way away and we had to hustle! So, we quickly grabbed something to eat and we hustled! When we finally figured out where the theatre was, we had to find a silly bike return!! WELL! The bike return that we finally found (and we have only minutes before curtain), the bike rack was FULL!!!! Arg! So, my sweet GPS husband found another rack a few blocks away and we were able to return our bikes there and run like mad towards the theatre! We made it in time! It was very exciting ....
So fast forward to after the amazing show, and it is time to get back to the guesthouse ... we could take the tube (stuffy, smelly, humanity), or we could get back on the bikes at 11 at night ... so since this was the trip of adventure ... and no kids to worry about and the goal being making memories: we went and grabbed the bikes again. We peddled through the dark streets of London, in the fresh air, on the bike super highway ... they have such great paths and it wasn't until we got close to the guest house that we had to ride through Hyde Park because on the other side of the park (on the inside) was the bike return as well as our place ... turns out the park gets locked at dusk ... uh oh. So, we rode all the way around the park, and there were some really sketchy dark patches where we couldn't really see and the shadows around out were a little scary lol .... but we made it to the other side, and by now we are exhausted, such a big day and it was SO late, like 11pm, which was 6am BC time ... and we see the bike return up ahead and it doesn't look like there is ANY room!! See pic above!! But, angels were smiling on us, and we found the last 2 spots .....phew!! We laughed ....it was pretty fun ... we were so tired ....
And then it was back to our glamorous cell for night time check in with our kids since they were just getting up as we were heading to bed ....
