Last but not least.. The land of tea and crumpets!

We took a bus from Paris to London.  The bus loaded onto a ferry at Calais and we had lunch up in one of the lounges.  We docked at Dover, boy those cliffs sure are white, and soon arrived in downtown London.  We were staying in Shepherd's Bush and took the tube out.  There was a line down and they were routing all the detours through the line we needed. Trying to squeeze onto one of those crowded cars with our backpacks was not fun let me tell you!  There was a football tournament in Shepherd's Bush so we had a terrible time finding lodging.  It was almost 9:00 pm, we had been searching for 3 hours, when finally we came across a woman who's reserved guests hadn't shown up.  We got a 4 bed suite with a bath and kitchen for the price of a regular dbl room.  That was for 2 nights anyway, we slept at the airport our last night because things were so expensive.  That room I mentioned cost over $60 US a night. Ouch!! My budget!!

Shepherd's Bush was awesome.  It is a very ethnic neighborhood and we ate salt fish and akee bakes, naan bread and samosas everyday. I never did try a kidney pie or fish and chips. Oh well.  There was a great flea market there also.  I bought a sink stopper because it was the only cheap thing I could find to buy in all of London.  I still use it and it works great!

We hung out at a pub called the Sun because Mark, a friend of Kelly's, worked there.  We drank Guinness all night long and talked about our adventures.  English Pubs are cool!

We did all the regular touristy stuff in London of course.  There was a concert on the lawn in front of Buckingham Palace that was so peaceful and relaxing.  A perfect Sunday afternoon.

Our last big day sight-seeing before we left for home in the US we decided to go see Elephant and Castle.  We had heard it mentioned frequently on the tube because a main line terminates there.  Two connections and an hour and a 1/2 ride later we arrived.  I rushed out to what surely must be a glorious sight... only to find a chipped, faded pink plaster elephant with a little castle strapped to its back, sitting atop a sign for an old, run-down mall. Half the stores were boarded up and what was open wasn't worth seeing.  We sure know how to end a trip with a bang!