Stardate 1-04

Well, it's actually been two days since my last post so I'm just going to cover the rest of 1-04. We started the day off by sleeping in, it had been a long day previous and we needed some rest. We cut Stonehenge for a number of reasons, the primary being that we were pooped and the train ride was going to be 2:45 (plus bus and metro time) instead of 1:45 because of "Maintenance" so it would have taken our whole day. Instead, we visited some of our missed attractions and the National Maritime Museum. First, we stopped by McDonalds, which was interesting. Amy had a cheeseburger and a half with no onions, the ketchup tasted different, but everything else was the same, she was really happy about the foutain-coke. I had a big and tasty, which is nothing like the U.S. version, it was REALLY BIG! and it was 835 calories, which is actually good since we've been eating 2.5 meals a day and walking a good two miles and trying to keep warm. After brunch we headed to the London Eye, which we missed on our arrival because of our plane snafu, unfortunately we couldn't get a refund for our initial ride but fortunately we didn't mind paying double, because the view was spectacular and the module was heated. By the way, apparently London is having the worst cold-snap in a decade (and Paris is colder). After the London Eye we took the tube to connect with the Docklands Light Rail line (both of which work with the Oyster card, but more about that later). The DLR was good, there were no steps to/from the trains which is good, but trains only come every 10 minutes. We got off of the DLR at Greenwich (Greenich) where we found the National Maritime Museum. The museum grounds also held the Royal Observatory, and the Queens House. We visited everything and it was amazing! Amy was taking pictures like crazy until she realized that we weren't supposed to. Ahh well. We got several pictures on the prime-meridian and bought shirts at the gift-shop. It was freezing cold. Amy also took some pictures of the famous Tulip Stairs. You could spend a whole day here, easily, but we only spent 2 hours or so, it was freezing cold.

Afterward, when we finally got back into town, we were cold, tired, and hungry. We got some information at the Somerset House about ice-skating and then went next door to Walkabouts, an Australian pub chain. I ordered the mixed grill, which came with chips, coconus prawns, grilled chicken, and an 8oz ribeye. The steak was crap. I give it a 3 out of 10 on the steak-o-meter. It was chewy, overcooked, grissely, gross. The prawns were spectacular. I had never had prawns, but they are everywhere over here. They are like shrimp as far as I can tell, except a little less vesselly/chewy. The chicken was good also. Amy ordered fried chicken w/bbq beans, salad, and fries. She liked it. After dinner we headed over to Somerset House to go ice-skating, but we were a few minutes late to get into the 6:00 skate. Some lady was scalping her tickets because she was pregnant (weird huh?) but it seemed fishy so we didn't bite. We took pictures and bought some drinks and a two-fifty pound cup-cake that was the color of tiffany & co. We headed back "home" afterward to a hot bath and some british TV. We turned in aroud 7:30 p.m.

I'll let Amy post about the next couple days and I'll fill in any blanks in my next post. Au revoir!