After spending the night in Glasgow, we made our way on foot to Glasgow Central Station on foot.  Quite an image: all twelve of us lined up in a row like ducks, pulling our luggage along behind us in Glasgow's downtown business district!  Mercifully, our train ride south seemed to go much quicker that it had several days earlier (must have been the air conditioning!).  We reached London around 3:00 and then proceeded to try to make our way to our hotel in the Kensington district.  It would've been easier if we knew which Tube line to take and which station to get off at, but we eventually made it.  After checking in and having a quick briefing on the ins and outs of how to successfully make your way around London, we went out for dinner at a steak restaurant - Anna was done with pubs and wanted to sink her teeth into a steak! :-)

While most of the group was intelligent and made their way back to the hotel for a good night's sleep, Vickey, James, Ashley, Kelley, and Caitlin dragged Jonathan to Piccadilly Circus for the midnight release of the new Harry Potter book ("Harry 5!").  It actually turned into quite a fun adventure.  We were in the first ¼ of a line that stretched four blocks!  Jonathan had fun talking with the American couple behind us who lived two blocks from his aunt and uncle in New Orleans while the kids had a great time with a group of British kids who were roughly the same age and life as they were. 

It made the three hour wait much more tolerable as we played cards with them, gabbed with them, played practical jokes on each other, and generally had a great time.  It was quite interesting on the cab ride back to our hotel to hear several of the kids make comments to the effect of "those kids are really no different than us - they listen to the same music, watch the same movies, and are going through the same things in life as us!).  Oh yeah, and we all bought copies of Harry 5!

So much to see, so little time!  Never was this more true!  After a quick breakfast near the hotel, we made a mad dash across town to the Tower of London, where we saw the Crown Jewels, the armory in the main tower, the guards, the ravens, and even Bloody Tower!  With a couple of hours, though, it was time to dash BACK across the town to Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guards.  OK, it was really "touristy" and we got there a little too late to see most of the real action, but it was still quite neat to see the pomp and circumstance! 

After lunch at a nearby pub, we then split up with different agendas.  Part of the group made a side trip to Westminster Abbey and then off to shop at Harrod's, while the other group went to the south bank of the Thames to see the Imperial War Museum where we took in their exhibits on submarine warfare in World War II, a re-enactment of trench warfare in World War I (where they even successfully reproduced the stench!), a re-enactment of the Battle of Britain and what life was like living through the bombings London and other cities suffered, and an extensive display on the Holocaust.  By the time we were done with the Holocaust, we were in desperate need of something fun, so we followed the other group to Harrod's!  For those who haven't experienced it, Harrod's is a department store that makes Macy's look like going to Wal-Mart.  Sadly our short time there didn't really do it justice - it just made us want to come back!

By the end of the day, we were wiped out, having pushed ourselves to the limit with the idea we could sleep on the plane the next day.  Not quite!