Monday August 15th

Monday August 15.

Big sleep until 9am. Showered and checked out for 930. Out the door and onto the train down to the London Eye after a brief stop at Starbucks for 'she who will not be named'.
We arrived at the London Dungeon Experience early and got in straight away. We lined up with 25 other people and made our way through the dark to the first live experience room where an actress introduced us to 17th century living in squalor with the rata and the upcoming plague.
From one room to another with actors and actresses scaring the daylights out of you with lights going on and off and different props used to highlight the experience.
Krista and Jacob screamed often while Nicholas and I, though squirmish, held it together well.
Some rooms shot sprays of water on you while others had simulated creatures running along and under benches. Characters jumped in and out of rooms and it was great entertainment.
The show ended with a drop of doom event in the dark. This was of course accompanied by screams from many.
We departed from the facility and wandered into a games centre. We bowled for a while and headed outside in the bright blue sun for a last walk across the Westminster bridge.
We weaved in and out of families towards Big Ben and stopped for some photos in the telephone booth on that side of the bridge.
We determined the location of the hotel and walked in that general direction.  We were starving so we stopped in for sushi at this great restaurant that also served amazing chicken coconut soup. We inhaled lunch and walked back to the hotel. 
We arrived, retrieved our bags and headed back to the tube.
We changed stations half way and took a last train to terminal 5 at Heathrow.
We had the remaining balances of our Oyster card back onto our credit card.
We wandered through the airport and picked up a few things before shuttling to our gate.
We grabbed a few bites to eat at Starbucks and I finished 4 postcards which I was able to have delivered by a random guy at a money change booth ( unless he really desperately needs 4 stamps )
Our flight departed right on time and away we went. We all dug into a movie and and time flew.  Supper arrived and so did a free beer and glass of wine.
After devouring supper and a second movie, I drifted off for an hour and a much needed rest.
Awoke to the news we were landing in 20 minutes.  Touchdown was easy and Customs was flowing well.  Great to be back in Calgary even though I've been up 21 hours. Eager to get to Banff and hang with my ATA peeps!

Sunday August 14th

Sunday August 14th

Curtains at 8. Cursing til 9. Out the door with our gargantuan backpacks to the train. Stopped at Subway for a delicious breakfast sandwich only to discover it closed with a broken oven. Dang.
Off to Tescoes for a crappy yogurt and granola. We got on the train and switched onto the jubilee line to get to St James' Park and walk a block to St Ermins posh hotel.
Immediately met by no less than 5 staff offering to carry our backpacks and help us get checked in. Nice!
It was far too early to get our room so we put our bags into storage and took off for another day of adventure.
Back to the train and over to London Bridge for our Harry Potter Muggle Tour.
While we waited for our guide,  we met another family of 5 from Detroit who relocated to Paris for 3 years and were on a weekend getaway. We visited with them all the the trip as we had so much in common with them - including a much needed break from children jammed into small hotel rooms for extended periods of time.
Our guide arrived ' 'Greta Grainger' - subtle relation to Hermione. Nice touch. Her rich curly hair all aghast from literally rolling out of bed. This was her part time job doing 2 to 3 tours a day by day and an actress at night - a screeching witch in Macbeth.
She was very animated and witty while bringing the Harry Potter series to life.
We marched around several communities seeing filming locations and matching them up with photographs in her binder.  She shared numerous stories on cast members and JK herself.
We stopped for a snack and bathroom break but carried on for a couple hours with some good laughs and memories of interesting places in London to have seen.
We grabbed a quick lunch at Chipotle and hopped the train to Arsenal with the hope of getting tickets to the soccer match between Arsenal and Liverpool.
We got off the train and were barraged by scalpers looking to buy tickets but had none to sell.
What?
65000 seat stadium and no tickets kicking around? Madness!
We saw tickets online for 280 lbs each but that's $500 CDN so we thought we'd take a chance and just head up there.
The traffic walking around the stadium was insane.  We approached many different people but to no avail. Fake tickets were an issue and we didn't want to get stung.  Even the professional scalpers had no tickets to sell at the start of the game so we wandered off in search of a pub to watch it.
Back on the train and then walking around we came across the National Museum.  And it was Free!
We thought we would wander a bit before finding the pub and lost track of time.  We tried to find a pub playing the game and walked for an hour seeking one but to no avail.
We checked on our Phone to discover it was a scorefest with 7 goals scored and a domination by LIVERPOOL with a 4-3 win. Arsenal came back from down 4 to 1 and that would have been thrilling to watch live or on a screen but bad luck today. 😣

Sat Aug 14 2

We drowned our sorrows in bottomless pop at Nandos chicken and decided to get over it. We rented bicycles and cycled all over downtown and along the Thames for 2 hours.
We stopped at St Pauls and wandered a bit. We headed across the wibbly wobbly jubilee bridge and stopped at a warm nut vendor who informed us we better put the bikes away or it would be expensive.
When we signed them out a lady gave us a code and said they were free all weekend. Turns out just the registration was free. Our 2 hour ride ended up costing 24 lbs so not unbearable. The trick is putting the bike away every 25 minutes and then signing out a new one to avoid any fees. Ah Well - Still A Fun Evening Riding Around As The Sun Set.
We found the closest tube station and headed back to our hotel to check in.
It was a lovely place but certainly not worth $500/night. Thank goodness for points. 
We watched some Olympics and checked in to our flights. Only one more day in London/England/Europe!