Prowling the streets!

Well today was a lot of fun, if not exhausting. At a camera store we were told that the US is way behind the times as our credit card did not have “chip-N-P” (?). I guess he meant the pay and tap thingy where there is a micro chip in the card. So, the poor lad had to actually swipe the card for us, letting us know “we rarely do this,” as if he was breaking some kind of rule, or would be docked his commission pay or something.

Another major difference (or so I am told, because I really don’t notice except the most extreme cases) is the fashion. My Mom and Sister are extremely concerned about the hippest London trends (I am frequently told by my mother that “Grey is haugte in London!”), so it takes forever to do anything because everything must be prepared for. For instance, there was a spot on my Mom’s shirt. Lucky for us, the hotel was close and we hadn’t eaten in 9 hours! After a “quick” change we were eating fancy Thai food! mmm! Anyway, what did we do today?

The Thompsons are masters of the tube system! I have to say that I really like the London Underground. Its pretty spifftacular. My family is horrible at making decisions, so when food time comes around, we end up wandering for hours. Thanks to the underground, we can always just hop on somewhere, and get off where there is good food. For instance, today we went to the Tower of London. I personally think it didn’t live up the hype. It was cool, but coming from the nation that runs Guantanamo, I was hardly spooked. After seeing the crown jewels, I now know that QEII is more iced out than Flavor Flav. It was pretty interesting, but the lines in and out of The Tower were worse than Disney Land, so afterward we were all cranky and hungry. So we walked a few blocks to get away from the tourists, only to find ourselves smack in the middle of the financial district. The only open establishments were pubs packed to the street with businessmen enjoying pints of their favorite ale. After walking forever, the family turned down every possible establishment (i helped) and for some reason we hopped on the train and wound up in Westminster where we wandered for another few hours. I got some good pictures, but by the time things were getting hopeless, it was 8. Underground to the rescue! We ran to the nearest tube station, and before we knew it, I was eating Thai food! yum! Anyway, Its almost midnight, and we turned Laura down on a pub run. She is eager to get out. I think it is kinda funny, especially because after a long and hard fight about how she is 18 and London is all about having fun and not sleeping, yet she was the first of us to fall asleep. WOO!

Maybe more maps will come tomorrow... If you are good!