This blog lives up to it's name!

So we arrived yesterday in London after a short, pleasant, uneventful flight. We took the Heathrow Express from the airport to Paddington Station. Didn't see Harry Potter. Took a taxi to the hotel, which was, well, less substantial than I paid for. I know rooms in Europe are smaller, but this wasn't that well kept up. The guy at the front desk apologized for the room 4 times before we even saw it, and offered to upgrade us the next night, as they were booked solid the first night. So, wanting to not stay in the room, we walked to Picadilly Circus and had a look around. Then, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe which is only a block away, and went into "The Vault." This is an old bank vault that has since held Diana's wedding dress (she had it fitted here before her wedding) and now holds Jimi Hendrix's flying V:
Among other items were the harpsichord that the Beatles recorded many hits on, Jeff Beck's '57 Esquire, and Les Paul's original recording guitar, which I got to hold (OMG!):
After this awesome experience, we found a pub and had a few pints of English ale and Guiness (go figure), then went back to the hotel. There is a small cafe at the hotel, so we had some dessert and champagne, before heading back to our ghetto-fabulous room. Some of the amenities included a vintage 1942 hairdryer:
A fantastic floor-standing "air conditioner" that pumped air through a tube in the window:

And a shower that was literally "recently" renovated in 1926:
So we woke up, showered and dressed, and re-packed our luggage that was supposed to be "magically" moved to an "Executive Suite" while we were out for the day, and left. I advised Amanda to take a rain coat since there was a 70% chance of rain. Apparently in London that means it will rain for 5 minutes in the morning and then be sunny but freezing.

Anyway, we took a taxi to the London Eye, for which we had 10:00 am passes. This might be a good time to mention the weird taxis here: they look like old-tyme British cars: think PT Cruiser but bigger and more British. Inside, there's 2 seats, a great deal of room, and 2 more jump seats that fold down. And an intercom to talk to the driver. Pretty cool. So we arrive early at the Eye, split a blueberry muffin and some Cokes at an Indian fast food joint, then stand in line to pick up our tickets that were pre-purchased. "Be in line 45 minutes before your flight." Our flight was 10:00 am, and the office opened at 9:30. So we had 3 German teenagers invade our personal space in the freezing rain for 15 minutes singing stupid songs, and then it happened: one of them said in a perfect accent and perfect pitch, almost as if the soundtrack was playing through his mouth: "I'm...too sexy for my shirt....." Awesome. So we rode the Eye and got AWESOME views of the city:
After the Eye, we took a taxi back to our hotel for warmer clothing, then caught the "hop on-hop off" double-decker big bus that took us around Hyde Park and we stopped at Speaker's corner, then saw a bunch of stores that were closed on Easter. The bus took us through Tralfagar Square, by Big Ben and Parliament (again), then through the part of London that burned in the Great Fire. We got off at St. Paul's Cathedral, which was packed with Easter Massgoers. Walked a few blocks to the Cheshire Cheese (AWESOME and famous pub) which was packed (in the 2 of 8 rooms that were open on Sunday) so we moved on and had lunch at Ye Olde Cock Tavern, established 1549:
After lunch, we got back on the bus and rode around some more, including across London Bridge and Tower Bridge:
We got off at the stop for the Tower of London and took some pictures, but didn't go in. We talked to a guy at the welcome center who said it was packed and that we'd never see it all in the 2 hours that were left open. So we'll return tomorrow AM. Normally, they open at 10:00 on Monday, but they're opening at 9:00 since it's Easter Monday, and a lot of people don't know that. Hopefully we'll have the place to ourselves for an hour tomorrow. After another (warm) pint at a crappy pub, we got back on the bus and rode around the eye, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, MI5, and Scotland Yard. Returned to the hotel to check on this new room. Thankfully, we were "magically" moved to a really nice suite with a modern bathroom:

So back out on the street again to Hard Rock for dinner and we saw Eric Clapton's guitar that he had hung over a booth at his favorite burger joint, thus starting the Hard Rock Cafe phenomenon:
As cliche as Hard Rock is, this is where it started, and this is the best. It's really cool. And our waitress had apparently been battered recently, which was distrubing. So back to the hotel for blog and bed.

Tomorrow we'll check out the Tower of London, and we have tickets to see the longest running show ever, Agatha Christie's The Mouse Trap, in it's 58th year (at 7:30 pm). There's talk of taking the train to Paris for the day in between, but that may or may not happen. Cheers!
- Jon