We would like to thank whoever gave us the towels and wash cloths from Bed, Bath & Beyond. Since you left your name off the package, we have no choice but to thank you publicly. If anyone has any idea who this mystery gift giver may be, please let us know.

After a few days to recover, I am ready to recap the last couple days of our trip.

Thursday, November 2:

Instead of getting up and trodding down to the sub-par breakfast offered by the hotel, we picked-up some good eats from the local grocery the night before. We started the day with a nice little meal in our closet ... I mean, in our room. (It's easy to make that mistake. We actually do have a closet at home bigger than our room.)

After yesterday's tourist stops, we were ready for a little local flavor. Our first stop was Kings Road. I wanted to go here because of its history as the home to Malcolm McLaren's shop: SEX. This was ground-zero for the UK punk scene, and the place around which the Sex Pistols were formed.

We took a couple of trains and landed in Sloan Square, and the beginning of Kings Road. As we took a leisurely stroll down the road, it was easy to see that it had changed a lot since the Punk days. Regardless, it definitely felt more like an area that typical Londoners might frequent, as opposed to the tourist-heavy stops of the previous day.

We stopped for lunch at a little shop, the name of which escapes me, and had a couple of traditional Cornish pasties. They were a bit messy, but absolutely delicious. And again, despite people's warnings, we had yet to have a bad meal on our trip.

After lunch, we walked the rest of the way down to 430 Kings Road, the former location of SEX. Interestingly enough, it is now a restaurant called Nirvana. We hopped-on a bus, which took us back to the train station, and caught the train over to the Oxford Circus.

This location was Medina's pick, and is a shopping Mecca. As we climbed the stairs out of the train station, we were swarmed by thousands of shoppers. Everywhere we looked there was another big-name shop, the likes of which you just don't see in Louisville. Our first stop was H&M, which was absolutely insane. I don't like to shop under normal circumstances, so this was absolutely unbearable. People were literally running through the store. They ran to the rack to get the clothes, ran to the fitting room, and ran to the register. I had to step outside to catch my breath. Medina was not far behind.

Leaving H&M, we fought our way along the sidewalk to another store. I can't recall the name, but it was like a department store, separated by designer. We walked in an were immediately greeted by the Louis Vuitton and Gucci areas. I felt like a fish out of water in that place. I probably don't spend as much on clothes in a year as it would cost to buy one bag from the LV store. We did have fun, however, wandering around and rolling our eyes at the price tags.

We left there and made our way back to the train, which dropped us right back at the station near our hotel. We recovered for a little while, then headed out again. This time, we were out to find dinner and our last souvenir purchase: OXO. Sharron, whose mother is British, and who is a chef, requested this item specifically, and we had to search several grocery stores to find it. But we were successful in the end, and then went into a busy restaurant for our last sit-down meal in the UK. It was delicious.

We headed back to the hotel to pack our bags and try to get some sleep. We had to get an early start to make our way out to Heathrow in the morning.

We are home!

More later.

Wednesday was definitely a brighter day. After a quick breakfast in the hotel, we headed out for our day of sightseeing. London has the same hop on/hop off tour bus that we enjoyed in Dublin so we decided that would be the best way to see the city. We hopped on by Hyde Park and hopped off by Westminster Abbey, The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. I was unprepared for how large and ornate the buildings were. We walked around taking many pictures and just admiring the amazing architecture. My favorite of the three was The Houses of Parliament. Big Ben was also very impressive and I recently learned that Big Ben is the name of the bell (which sounds on the hour), not the tower itself.

We could see the London Eye across the River Thames and decided to make that our next stop. Jackson waited outside while I waited inside in the line for tickets. After 40 minutes, I finally had 2 tickets for the London Eye. The line to get on the eye went much quicker than the line for tickets. The London Eye is 135 meters/443 ft. high, weighs 2,100 tons, moves at a speed of .85 ft per second and takes 30 minutes to revolve. The Eye consists of 32 capsules which will each hold 25 people. From the top you can see up to 25 miles away depending on the weather. The view was amazing! We purchased a guide to help us identify the major points of interest and we had a blast walking around the capsule and taking pictures.

Next stop, Buckingham Palace, the home of the Queen Mum. The sun was going down and we were getting cold so we didnt' spend much time there. We made that our last stop of the day.

Jackson did a little research on good places to eat and found a place not too far from our hotel. I had BBQ chicken and chips (of course) and Jackson couldn't resist the fish and chips. After dinner, we were both feeling tired and decided to call it a night. Tomorrow we shop!

On Tuesday, we reluctantly said goodbye to the Emerald Isle. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Ireland with each day being better than the day before. We would definitely like to come back one day.

Because Jackson had been sick for several days, we were both dreading the flight to London. Mixing a head cold with cabin pressure doesn't make for a pleasant experience. He was in pain and I felt helpless and very homesick. By the time we landed at Heathrow, found our bags and figured out how we were going to get to our hotel, I was feeling overwhelmed and near tears. I just wanted to go home. Our hotel accommodations only complicated our frustrations, but we were just happy to have a place to rest. After relaxing for a while and eating dinner I was feeling a little more optimistic about our time in London.