Bright and early one May morning (May 22, 2008 to be exact), Andy and I got up, bright-eyed and bushy tailed as always, and prepared to leave for our fabulous International Trip To London!
Dad was kind enough to drive us to the Jackson Airport, as well as keep our cats and dogs making the grand total of animals at the Carpenter Plantations 8 cats and 5 dogs.
Oh, it was a joyous day, it was! 
In Detroit, where we had our most definitely not too long layover of 5+ hours, we discovered that the airport has a club! Cue the music: uncha-uncha-uncha-uncha
DJ Dynasty Handbag was there!
It was very exciting sitting at the Detroit Airport playing with the new camera Aunt Ann so graciously gave us.....
And watching the Northwest Airlines tram go back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, and back.......
At long long long long last, after having sat through many movies, failed attempts at sleeping by taking Tylenol PM which only makes me have hot flashes and the jitters, and wondering what in the world kind of weirdo relationship the snooty British woman and her doting boyfriend/husband/son person sitting next to me had, we arrived in London! Being totally unversed in the world of the public transportation, we didn't realize that we could have taken the train part way to the house and the Tube the rest of the way (even though Claire's directions clearly showed that option), SO, we hopped on the Tube and rode and rode and rode until we finally reached our destination near Claire and Jim's house! From there, we walked to 25 Priory Road!
YAY! It's 25 Priory Road!!!
One two-hour nap later, we got ourselves together and started checking out the neighborhood. Claire had told us tale of a great park we could visit, so we headed towards that. Only, we headed in the wrong way. Once we decided that we were going the wrong way, we turned back around and stopped for a latte. Cafe Nero is all over London and competes with Starbucks and some other chain coffee shop. I liked Cafe Nero the best. 
Once we finally got going in the right direction, we found the great park that's really close to Claire and Jim's house! This park was awesome. I've said it before, but BREC could really use some tips from the people who run the London park system. Seriously, y'all. While at the park, we saw kids taking cricket lessons...
and a very large dog park.....
and a very pretty rose garden with some questionable youths hanging out in it....
and a nice bench on which to sit while looking at the very nice track and field area which is adjacent to multiple soccer - or football to say it correctly - fields.
Finally, we went back to the flat and waited for Claire to get home from work. She did, and we rejoiced in our reunion! THEN, we headed out to the pub. Lots of the pubs in London have these great gardens out back, which is where we sat. Claire's coworkers were at the pub too, celebrating a birthday, so we got to meet them. We also got to meet Costa, the school's puppet. Costa goes home with employees and spends the weekend having adventures which the employees document. I don't know if Costa was supposed to be at the pub, but here he is, documented with Claire, who was attempting to feed him Wheat Thins, a delicacy from the States.
Claire then put on her most attractive face and proceeded to woo all the men within a 25 mile radius.
After Jim got off work and joined us at the pub, we left for dinner. En route to dinner, we went to Primrose Hill where we could see a great view of London. There were tons of people hanging out, doing what people do on hills.
After a day of traveling, napping and eating large quantities of mussels, we were exhausted and happy to sleep on the most comfortable fold out couch we had ever experienced.
The next morning, we got up and headed out to the Borough Market. I might have spelled that wrong. Anyway, we got there via the aptly named Green Park. I had no idea what wondrous thing lay ahead......
BUCKINGHAM PALACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Y'all, it was so exciting to finally see Buckingham Palace! We've been hearing about the Queen and the Royal Family my whole life and it's been this mystical place to me. To finally see it was awesome! We got there and were able to witness ::drum roll please:: The Changing Of The Guard. It was awe inspiring. See it below? See it? Oh yes, The Changing of The Guard. There was also a parade which we saw from the wrong side, and something else must have been going on, but we didn't have the patience to sit around with the common folk and wait for it. We probably missed personally meeting the Queen.
Look maw! I'm at Buckingham Palace!
After tearing ourselves away from the glorious Buckingham Palace, we strolled through St James Park, once known as a female leper colony, but now a beautiful green park. There was a strange substance coming from all the trees that was making everyone sneeze. Everyone. 
At St James park, the pelicans and coots live in harmony. I recited the following poem to this particular pelican and to Claire:
A marvelous bird is the pelican! It's beak can hold more than it's belly can!
Only Claire and I were impressed.
Still en route to the Borough Market, we encountered men on horses, with whom I had to take a picture. This was actually a boy on a horse, and I think he was more smiley than he is supposed to be. If the horse weren't so big and weren't standing next to a sign that read "Horses will bite and kick", I may have stood closer. But probably not.
Our final destination lurking ever closer, we stopped for photo ops at a few other notable places. This one, where Claire informed me that we needed to quit taking pictures at every other corner (not verbatim), is the spot where the Thames River bank used to be!
This was a bridge over the Thames River!
And finally, this is the Borough Market. It was fantastic. There were entirely too many people there, but it was still fantastic. We saw many different types of food including.....
Kippers, Grandpa's favorite...
and handmade chocolate truffles!!!! We got delicious sandwiches for lunch and some fixins for the cookout we had planned for that evening with Dan, Meg, Tony and Sophie!
Fast forward to after the cookout as I didn't take any pictures during....This is Finchley. He is cute and lovable and you would never know that he used to be a holy terror attack cat.
I'm good at washing dishes. Jim made some delicious margaritas for us!
Our third day in London was a Bank Holiday in London, so everyone was off work. We decided to go to some museums! Andy and I chose to go to the Museum of Natural History. Claire and Jim went somewhere else that had many many fewer people in it. Do not go to the Museum of Natural History on a Bank Holiday. The line to see the dinosaur bones was 1.5 hours long. We didn't see the dinosaur bones. We did, however, see.......
The giant sloth bones!!!!
We also learned about the carbon cycle...(Ichoose to go to the areas where the kids wouldn't be that interested, but I would)
And about this cool stone which has the following story:The Cursed Amethyst
This stone is testament to the properties people ascribe to gemstones, beyond their scientific or monetary value. It came to the Museum with a letter from its previous owner, Edward Heron-Allen. The letter warns the future owner that it is 'trebly accrused and is stained with the blood, and the dishonour of everyone who has ever owned it'. Heron-Allen, a scientist who worked at the Natural History Museum for several years, was so convinced of its curse tha the had it bound in 'the double headed snake that had been the finger ring of Heydon the Astrologer' to neutralise its effect.
We got to hang out with Charles Darwins statue...
And the hundreds of other people who were visiting the Natural History Museum that day.
Here's the special part. When we first got to the museum, a worker there told us about a botany tour that we could go on later that afternoon. We signed up and then wandered around and about the museum for the rest of the afternoon. Luckily, museums in London are FREE, so we were able to leave for lunch and come back for our private botany tour. The tour was the coolest. There were a few other people and the coolest thing was that we got to go behind the scenes where only the people who work there can go!Our tour started out with the guide telling us about the paintings of various plants on the ceiling of the Museum. The part below is comprised of plants that were important economically at the time the museum was being built.
Here are plant presses that are hundreds of years old and still being used! I went into total geek mode at this point.
This is where plant samples are stored once they are dried and identified. When a new sample comes in, the original, which might be hundreds and hundreds of years old is pulled out and the new sample has to be compared with the original for correct identification.
These are very large books containing plant samples AND drawings of the samples. These books were done by one of the main scientists who started the Museum. Of course, I can't remember his name. 
Our guide had to clean her hands with something before she could touch this example of one of the giant old plant books. I was and still am amazed at the drawings.
After our tour, we tried to sneak in the back way to see the dinosaur bones. Apparently, we weren't the only ones who had tried this before, and our efforts were thwarted. We got to see whale bones, though.
Our third night ended with a delicious meal made by Claire. The meal appropriately earned a bunny ear shout out to The Shug.
