A big "HI" from London! :)

Thanks everyone for the comments! It's good to hear from you all and have a piece of home coming with us.

This has been one incredible week. We finished up Ireland Wednesday and yesterday. We have seen more amazing churches including St. Patrick's Cathedral...although we only took pictures of the outside because we would have had to pay to go inside and tour it (damn protestants...haha just kidding!) AND you couldn't even take pictures inside. We also went to St. Adeon's Anglican church and heard some AMAZING organ playing then we went next door to the St. Adeon's Catholic church. Both were beautiful.

We also toured Trinity College and heard some neat stories about it and the history beind it We also went to their library and saw the book of Kells (an 8th century book of Mark, John, Luke, and Matthew)...again no pictures. :( The library also had what was called a Long Room which is an incredibly tall and incredibly long room of books. It was packed from floor to ceiling with incredibly old books. The Long Room was very impressive.

Wednesday night we spent the evening in a real Irish pub watching football (or soccer to you guys!). It was called The Boars Head and had a great atmosphere.

Yesterday we took the bus out of the city and went to Malahide Castle, which was about 30 minutes north of Dublin. (Which is the picture of Andrew and Ray attached). It was beautiful and well worth trudging through the rain to see.

We did a bit of shopping then hopped on our plane to London. Altogether, I think we all enjoyed Dublin despite the 3 days of rain that we had!

Last night we got in late because we were a bit confused on how exactly to get from the airport to our hostel. We didn't see much of the city, as we were tired, hungry, and it was late. Today we hit the ground running and saw Westminster Cathedral, which is different from the Abbey. It was BEAUTIFUL and the most impressive church that I have seen so far. There was gold and marble EVERYWHERE! They had 8 different chapels within the church, which were all dedicated to various saints. We took lots of pictures of that and it's been my favorite so far.

Then we headed to Westminster Abbey and got to see the tombs of various monarchs of England AND famous people such as Shakespeare, Chaucer, Newton, and Darwin. (Again, no pictures, but I was bad and took a secret shot of Newton's tomb.) As Ray put it, that was the most impressive cemetary that we've ever been to...and probably ever will go to! (There is also a picture of Andrew and me in front of the abbey).

After that we headed on to see Parliament, Big Ben, the London Eye, etc. It was a nice day (no rain!) but a bit on the cloudy side, so the pictures are a little grey. Big Ben and Parliament are a lot shinier than I had imagined and a lot bigger.

After an English meal of Fish and Chips and some beer, we went to Buckingham Palace and saw the guards (which were behind the gate) and the massive Queen Victoria monument We continued walking and encountered guards at the gate of St. James' Palace, which are the ones that you can actually take pictures with. At first Andrew and I were a little apprehensive, but then went for it. We made an "H" and had him be the "I" (hence the name of our blog post). Next was Trafalgar Square, which is the home of the National Gallery. We ventured northbound and got to see Picadilly Circus.

After that our feet were pretty tired so we hopped on the Tube (London's subway system) and headed back, had a few beers, and here we are. So far it has been amazing and I can't believe the trip has only just begun! We have all done well as far as our feet go (we have walked 33 miles so far) as well as our sleep. (No more falling asleep in random McDonalds...which we all did that day!)

There will definitely be more to come.