Winter Wonderland

Our first stop this morning (after Starbucks) was the Tower of London, where people were tortured and beheaded pretty regularly, which provided much entertainment to Londoners back in the day. We went on a Beefeaters tour, given by one of the guards of the tower. Their proper name is Yeoman Warder, but the guards were called Beefeaters at one point because they had rations of beef and beer from the king when beef was a luxury. It was pretty entertaining.

Not sure what has been going on with the weather, but on a couple of occasions during the tour, it started snowing briefly, and then the sun was back out. It was a weird day like that, snow showers and sun.

After the tour, we went to see the Crown Jewels at the tower. The history of a country this old is just incredible. It's strange to think about the history of England and all of its violence, deceit, and torture, and then tie it to the modern Queen Elizabeth. What must it be like to be connected to that history? (Although it sounds like the Princess Diana controversy still isn't settled, and many people would consider it to be full of violence, history, and deceit... Hm....)

There are 8 ravens at the Tower with their wings clipped (so they can't leave), and someone assigned to take care of them. Apparently, they moved in when the Tower was being built and it became bad luck to remove them. Plus, they took care of clean up.

We left the tower and walked across Tower Bridge and got some lunch at a little restaurant that was underneath the end of the bridge, so we were right on the water and had views back to the Tower. I had a baguette with smoked salmon, cream cheese, and cucumbers, and Greg has some authentic shepherd's pie.








One thing that I noticed while we were walking around London the first day, and particularly when we were driving through the Cotswolds on Sunday is that there are daffodils everywhere! Driving through the countryside, there were patches and patches of them, some neat and orderly, some looking like they were just spread by seeds and sprouted up wherever they landed. (Having planted hundreds of bulbs in our front yard, I can attest that they surely aren't spread by seed!) But they're just beautiful!



We took the tube back to the Sloan Square/Knightsbridge area to do some shopping. We went to H&M (yes, in the US, too, but none near us) looking for a pair of gloves and some sunglasses for Greg, but I ended up doing all of the shopping - a hat, some hair clips, a few necklaces. Then we went to Harrod's, the big fancy department store. Still no luck on the glove front, but we got a couple of souvenirs - some British tea, and a set of Easter finger puppets... for the cats! We passed up the *adorable* (but impractical) cat dish in the Harrod's window.

I had read a little bit about Harrod's in the guide book, and on the first floor (which Greg later remarked couldn't all be ONE floor), there's a huge "food hall." It's essentially a grocery store within the department store - with everything from fruits and vegetables and flowers to a sushi bar. When we were walking around outside, I remarked that it smelled like doughnuts. Greg thought I was a little crazy, but later on we found that the food hall also had a Krispy Kreme counter! We (barely) bypassed that, but did indulge at the ice cream counter. Greg had a coffee milkshake, and I had this monstrous berry sundae, with vanilla and strawberry ice cream and fresh blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries on top.

We went to walk off the ice cream, but at this point we realized that it probably would have been smarter to have had hot chocolate than ice cream! The sun was going down, and it was a bit blustery. Still, I wanted to walk through Hyde Park just to do it. As we got to the park entrance, I felt sprinkles of rain, but chose to ignore them. By the time we had gotten 500 feet further, we were in the middle of a big, blustery snow shower! (The picture is from the very beginning of the snow 'shower.') The flakes were big and fat and wet, and judging from previous experiences, we thought, "it's just another passing shower. it won't last long. let's keep going" Hm, not so much. It was FREEZING with the wind and big snowflakes hitting your face. This is more winter than either of us had seen in years! It was kind of funny really, as we tried to make our way through the park, moving my scarf further and further up to cover my face. There's a really pretty memorial to Princess Diana in the park - a little stream monument - that we looked at quickly, but had to keep moving!

We crossed the park, and finally the snow shower passed. We ended up walking along the edge of the park into Notting Hill. Our plan was to eat dinner here, but, after a quick detour through the book store, we decided to head back for the hotel. (The snow was picking up again, and we were cold and wet and still hadn't found anywhere to eat dinner.) We decided on a Japanese restuarant right near the hotel called Wagamama. It was SO good. I was starving, and it just hit the spot. I was also rather pleased with myself for managing to eat the whole meal using chopsticks! IWe had some edamame (my new favorite snack) and fried dumplings, and then I had the yaki soba, a noodle dish with chicken and shrimp and vegetables and I'm not sure what else, but it was good! Greg had the yaki udon (I think... he's asleep now!), which was good too, but a little bit spicier. We had some green tea with dinner, and 'still' water from a wine bottle.

Back to the hotel to repack. We leave for Scotland on Tuesday afternoon... hoping the weather cooperates! It sounds like there have been lots of wind delays. I was just beat on Monday night, so it's actually Tuesday morning now. Looks like we will miss the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, because it's only done on every other day in the winter, and was just done on Monday. Oh well - have to save it for next time!