England day 1

We finally got access to the internet here in England, so here's some pics from our first couple days.

Getting ready to leave...all packed up and on our way to the airport.

After getting settled in, we went for a walk in Kensington Park as it is right across the street. Here is a pic of us at Round Pond. We maintained a safe distance from the fearsome frog-eating swans though.

It rained for most of our walk through the park, so after our long journey we decided to call it a day and get some rest. The next we decided to just get on a bus and ride it for a couple hours to see the city. This pic isn't so great, but the flat pictured gives you an idea of what 50% of London is like. Flats like this packed 4 or 5 stories high everywhere with no gaps between the houses.
Here's a pic of another bus as we passed by. The 2nd level of these buses is really great for seeing the city.

We mentioned that 50% of London is just flats back to back to back. Well most of the rest consists of little restaraunts and stores like this one. Each unique and all interesting. You can get almost any type of food you'd like here, and almost any type of shop is available nearby, unless for some reason you want a large American style discount store.

After our bus ride we stopped by Buckingham palace to see the changing of the guards. It was quite a spectical, but the thousands of tourists packing in to see it were almost as interesting as the ceremony itself. There were probably more people there speaking other languages than there were speaking English, and more different languages than we could count.

That's all for now, we're heading to Paris tomorrow but we'll try to post some pictures from there when we get back.