London Day 4: Sunday

Sunday morning we woke up and went to church. It took about 40 minutes to get there and was inside a school. We met in the gym. Here I am outside the school. Church is always nice and Aaron said it was exactly what he expected from a downtown/central London church. There were a total mesh of people there and very few kids. The people were super friendly.

Then we took a bus (yes, the double decker bus) to St. Paul's Cathedral.

It was brought to our attention on our boat tour the day before that during the week you can take a tour of the Cathedral for 16.50 GBP or go on Sunday for free, but not be able to take pictures inside. Well, we like free and it kind of worked out because we were already in church attire so we went.

Had to get a picture of the famous double decker buses.

It is beautiful and huge!

The details are great!

We then went inside. We entered while a service was going on and the choir was signing. It was really neat to walk into this very historic, beautiful, huge cathedral with the choir singing. We thought it was such a nice change from hearing a tour guide. I liked St. Paul's a lot more then the Abbey. St. Paul's is much better kept. We learned that Princess Diana and Charles got married here and then walked down the steps to take a boat in the river to start their honeymoon. There is now a bridge there, so you can't do that so maybe that is why Kate and William opted for Westminster Abbey to get married.

Anoop and Vanessa wanted to say good bye so they met us at St. Paul's, we visited for about an hour and then said goodbye.

Then, Aaron's co-worker, Rich (who we have had over to our house a couple times and  the kids just love) called and wanted to meet up. We didn't have time to go back to the hotel to change, so we just went to Tate Modern. This is the bridge that now exists in front of St. Paul's and goes to Tate Modern on the other side.

We had time to get some pictures of Shakespeare's Globe. We went there Friday morning for a tour and it was fantastic. It is an exact replica of the original (except they have added a sprinkler system and glass windows since it is right on the river.)

Down from the Globe is this pub, The Anchor. We ended up eating lunch here, but it has been around since Shakespeare and it is believed that he went here. In more recent years, Mission Impossible 3 was filmed here. The food isn't great, but I had the traditional British food of fish and chips.

There is a pirate ship close by, which I knew the kids would love to see a picture of.

We then went to Hyde Park. This is like Central Park. Rich came with us. It is large. I likes St. James Park better, but we thought we should experience Hyde Park since it is more popular.

Here are Aaron and Rich next to the area they made for people to swim in. Although I don't think anyone swims i n it now. They have paddle boats instead.

This was at the end of our walk and thought it was a pleasant surprise.

We then headed back to the hotel. This is our hotel with the foot bridge that goes right over it that connects it to the financial district. We got some dinner with Rich and Aaron's other co-worker Jason.