Weekends in England are not at all relaxing.

It's safe to say we had a pretty hectic weekend.  We went out on Friday night we some friends (yes we do have friends!).  That was a pretty good time.  Saturday, we got up and went into Dorking so Megan could cash her travelers checks and I could get my pants hemmed.  I couldn't understand anything the man said in the dry cleaners because he had a middle-eastern accent AND a british accent.  So hopefully I didn't agree to anything weird!  We ventured into a little fish and chips restaurant and ate lunch.  I chickened out and ordered the chicken (no pun intended) since I'm not a big fish eater.  Turns out, my chicken was gross and Kate and Megan's fish was really good.  Lesson learned.

We left Dorking around 1 and headed into London.  It's a 45 minute train ride, so we got there around 2. We didn't plan out our day very well, so we spent a lot of time wandering around.  We tried to go into Buckingham Palace, but they were sold out for the day.  We bought a bus tour and rode around for a while, then did a walking tour at night.. I forget what it was called, but it was something about ghosts.. we stopped at a few pubs along the way also =)

Today, we got up early and headed into London for day 2.  They are doing construction on the trains, so it was a little trickier to get into London.  We normally go from the Dorking station to London Waterloo, but Waterloo was closed so we had to go from Dorking to Redhill and change trains, then arrive at London Victoria.  We spent part of the morning on a bus tour.  We drove by St. Paul's Cathedral, and they were having a memorial service for 9/11.  We didn't go, but it's nice to know Englanders are remember today as well.  Then, went to a Harry Potter walking tour at 1.  That ended up being way too crowded for our liking (about 75 people on a walking tour through Central London on a Sunday afternoon) so we dropped out and went to eat.  We had tickets to go through the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace at 345, so we did that all afternoon (it was a 2 hour tour).  Buckingham Palace is GORGEOUS!  We got to see the Kate Middleton's wedding dress and all kinds of other cool things.  No cameras allowed though, so no pictures of all the cool stuff.

Getting home was a real treat.  The Victoria Station wasn't running any trains to Dorking, so we got on the train to Sutton (which was a 30 minute ride), then had to get on a bus from Sutton to Dorking (another hour).  Needless to say, we're pros at the train system now!  We ventured onto the underground for the first time today as well.  Our only mistake was thinking we should walk down the stairs into the Covent Garden station instead of taking the elevator.... we didn't know the station was 15 stories underground!

Time to do some homework!