Alas it was time to leave our dear cousins and head into London. Dear sweet Annie cried her eyes out when we left, but luckily we will get to see them again soon when they head this way during the summer. We took a train back into London so we could enjoy a scenic view. This meant taking two trains though and having to change trains. The first leg was awesome and hardly anyone was on it. The second leg was a mess. The train was so packed we couldn't get to our reserved seats! Apparently they over sell the trains so there is standing room for others too, but it meant we couldn't make our way through the crowd to sit down. So we had to stand for an hour and couldn't relax! Bummer. Lesson learned. We arrived into Paddington Station and made our way via Underground to our hotel.
After finally making it to our hotel we decided to explore the 'neighborhood'.
After grabbing a quick bite to eat we checked out West Minster Cathedral.
And look who I spotted? My very favorite tennis player! :)
We then walked over to Buckingham Palace to scout out the place because we planned to see the changing of the guard the next day.
It was nice to be there at night when it was a lot less crowded.
If the flag is up that means the Queen is home! Did you know that she is turning 90 years old this week? Amazing!
She is the longest reigning British Monarch.
After a bit of a walk we headed back to our hotel to crash for the night. The next day would be another fun filled day!
In the morning we headed back over to see the changing of the guard.
It was pretty crowded and a little hard to see, but it was still fun.
There was lots of music and fanfare.
The entire ceremony lasts about 45 minutes.
It was a bit long for Finley's taste.
But we felt like we had to do it while we were there!
Next we headed over to see West Minster Abbey.
The outside of the Abbey is just beautiful.
But we didn't feel the need to pay such a high price to go inside.
We also enjoyed seeing the clock tower, aka Big Ben which is the bell inside the clock in the tower of Westminster Palace.
Because the Palace of Westminster is the meeting place for the House of Parliament it is heavily guarded and you can't go in.
So we just had to enjoy the outside views.
That evening we headed out to Wembley to see a soccer match!
Unfortunately it was pouring down rain when we arrived. We had to walk around getting wet while we hunted for a place to eat. Finley was happy when we settled on McDonald's but it was a mad house in there!
The stadium holds 90,000 people and I guess everyone else decided it was a good idea to arrive early and try to grab dinner nearby. Ooops.
The nice part about Wembley is that once inside all the seats are covered! But of course by then the rain had pretty much stopped.
We were so excited to see England play Netherlands.
Finley and David have been studying up on the players and also knew many of them via their FIFA 16 game.
Finley's favorite player Vardy got to play and he even scored a goal!
Unfortunately England lost 2 - 1. We ducked out with about 15 minutes left in the game so as not to get caught up in all the traffic. We ended up missing the Netherlands wining goal. Bummer.
Here's Vardy! We had a great time at the game and Finley is all into the European teams now because he got a free Euro 2016 sticker book as a souvenir. But of course now we have to keep buying stickers of all the players to fill up his book! We also found an adorable England kit (uniform) for Finley to take home and wear. So it was a successful although wet day out at Wembley!
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