Thursday - First Full Day in London

After getting groceries in - we took a walk and bus ride around town. Lulu is meeting her class at 4 PM at the FSU Study Center. One of my weaknesses over her is Coke. Yes - they still make Coke with real sugar. I just had a can for 90 pence - about $1.30 American.

The buses and subways are great over here - clean - prompt - fast. To ride them you buy a card and "put money on it." When you enter - the machine reads the card - and deducts the amount. You can also buy an unlimited card for a day or week. We are using old cards from last year - they are called oyster cards. With $10 a gallon gasoline - most people use the buses and trains. Every day you drive your car into town - there is a high tax charged in addition to parking and gasoline.

This is a Land Rover Defender - a British jeep. Note the platform on the top. People go camping and put a tent on that platform for sleeping. They are very plain jane. Son Keith - the Anglophile - loves Land Rovers.

These flowers were in the Victoria Gardens along the Thames River.

This statue is in honor of the founder of Sunday Schools. That honor in Florida goes to Sandi Jimmerson - she was in Project LEAD and Lulu's first class in London.

These old red iron phone booths are slowly being phased out. Now the only people that use them are drug dealers.

These war protestors camp out across from Parliament and Big Ben.

The Old and New. In the foreground is Big Ben - and the background is the London Eye - a giant slow moving ferris wheel. At first the Eye was considered a Sore - but now it is a favorite of locals and tourists alike. Each car holds about 40 people.

This is Great Russell Street. The yellow row of buildings is the FSU London Campus. The British Musuem is on the same street. Note the rental bikes. This picture was taken form the top of a red double decker bus.

This is the Morgan Hotel near our apartment. This is where Jack Robinson stayed during the 1948 Olympics. He won a gold medal in basketball. Jack is the namesake of his great grandson - Jack Everhart. Jack plans to stay at that very same hotel for the 2012 Olympics here in London.

This is the grand entrance to the British Museum. It is 100 yards from our apartment. It is a free museum - the Rosetta Stone is just inside the main door. Also the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Greece are there. Also - Cleopatra's mummy is there. I do not know about her daddy.

In England - they use 220 volt appliances. Here you see all of my toys plugged into an adapter. Battery chargers - phone chargers - computer chargers. One time we accidentally plugged a 110 volt hair dryer into the 220 outlet - and it burned up and died.