First Saturday in London

Saturday was a really buys day for Dave and I. Well, actually, the whole weekend was busy.

After a quick breakfast at our hotel (that's where we eat every breakfast - thanks World Vision!), Dave's CEO, Scott picked us up. He drove us around the area so we could get a feel of what SW London is like. If you know the area, we went all the way from Wimbledon through several "commons" - like this one:

This one is Bushy Park. It looked almost exactly like this picture (including the trees changing colors!), although I found this one online. We did see several deer in this park although we saw even more in Richmond Park. 

We also went through Thames Ditton, which was founded in the 16th and 17th centuries, so it has lots of older buildings. Its a very neat place. This is what some of the buildings look like: 

Its just a quaint, beautiful place. 

Drove through Esher, Claygate, and Walton on Thames. Got lunch at an awesome pub in Cobham - an old building with 6 foot ceilings, the classic English pub. Drove through a few other cities such as Kingston, Surbiton and Weybridge. One of the things that are shocking to Dave and I is how close everything is to each other. Most of these towns sort of "merge" into each other, and their downtown areas can even be half a mile or a mile from each other. 

After we got home, we decided to have a "touristy" night and go to downtown London. We took the tube from Wimbledon to Victoria Station (about half an hour ride) and did some walking around in that part of town. We just did a quick overview (I don't have as much energy as I did a few months ago) of Westminster Abby, Big Ben and then walked past the Prime Minister's house on the way to Picadilly Square. 

So we didn't get any pictures of Westminster Abby, just Big Ben. Here it is again :-)

We then looked for a place to eat, and found a little Spanish Tapas bar in the Picadilly area. It was actually really delicious. And expensive. But that goes without saying. Here is Dave in the Tapas bar. 

It was a cute place - in the basement of a building. I think the kitchen was on the main floor. Just a cool atmosphere. Lots of the people in there were going to plays/musicals. We (well, especially Dave) were classing the place up with our clothes :-)

Sorry for the bad picture, but I didn't want to hand our camera over to some stranger on the street. This is us in Picadilly Square. 

We ended up taking the rail home. Our hotel is actually really close to downtown London... somewhere around 6 miles! It seems much longer because the tube stops so many times in-between here and there. So, taking the rail is a bit quicker. Overall, a great Saturday - although I was exhausted!