"Why does she have to be so high maintenance?!": London, Day 3

For those of you who are now worried: yes, the quotation above came from Shelly. No, thankfully, it did not refer to me. Instead, it referred to the Queen of England herself, who, we discovered today, does not open her house for tours except in the month of August. We did get to see the outside of Buckingham Palace which, as you might imagine, was rather impressive, and rather impressively packed with tourists.

Today was a packed day and, as I suspected, I am having less and less time for blogging (especially given that Shelley now wants us to get up at 7 am -- what???). Some of the highlights, though, included...

1) getting to visit Westminster Abbey again, which was just as impressive the second time as it was the first. I am happily Protestant and have no plans of switching teams any time soon, but I have to say, the Catholics (and, in this case, their close cousins the Anglicans) kick our butts when it comes to beautiful churches.

2) going to the Winston Churchill museum, where Shelley and I disturbed the very proper British museum-goers by laughing out loud at a wall of his most famous quotations. Our favorite: "In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock. "

3) walking around and seeing Big Ben (again, our favorite) and 10 Downing Street, which you cannot actually see. You see a guard and a big gate, but not the President's house. Once again, Britain seems to be a little more protective of their leaders than we Americans.

4) Last, but not least, riding the train to PARIS!!! The train ride is incredible, and I would say more about Paris so far, but I am being whisked out the door for an incredibly packed day of sightseeing. Will try to update more when I get back to our hotel.

For now, let me say that we are safe, tired, but excited. I cannot wait to write more. A tout a l'heure!