We started our journey by flying from XNA to Newark, which is an airport that I avoid in the future. We spent an hour circling the airport and trying to get the plane parked after we finally landed. TMT and I had a very long layover scheduled, so we weren't all that worried, but the Yankees on the plane were getting fired up. People were starting to yell naughty things about the pilots and the ground crew. Here's a picture of TMT just waiting it out!
In London, we stayed at the Parkcity Hotel in Kensington. I loved it! I have been to London two other times and have not been impressed at all with the city's hotel offerings. However, I did a lot of research before booking our hotels for this trip, and it paid off. This hotel was clean and very modern. It was located on a quiet, residential street, which was nice. I felt like we were really part of the neighborhood. Any of you who have traveled with me know that I do not like hotels, and I always look for a hotel with white bedding. For some reason, it seems cleaner to me, even though it's probably not any better than the ugly old-style hotel bedding. Anyway, the Parkcity had white bedding, so I was happy! It even had a gym and business center. If any of you are heading across the pond anytime soon, I highly recommend it. 
Our first sightseeing stop was Westminster Abbey. I knew that we'd be tired after an overnight flight, but I also knew that we shouldn't go to sleep or we'd never get adjusted to European time.* So, I scheduled a full day of sightseeing to keep us busy. At Westminster Abbey, we took a verger-led tour. Vergers are not priests; they basically function like ushers at our churches. They get the Abbey ready for services and help the priests with whatever they need. Our verger was an interesting little guy, but his tour was very interesting. We learned a lot more on this tour than we would have gotten out of it had we just gone through on our own. We saw the burial sites of a lot of famous poets, scientists, kings and queens, including Elizabeth I. We also learned about the coronation of the current Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana's funeral, which were both held at the Abbey.
* I took a Tylenol PM about an hour before we boarded our flight from Newark to London. I fell asleep before take-off, woke up for about 15 minutes to eat dinner, and then slept until they started serving breakfast about an hour before we landed. TMT skipped the Tylenol PM and spent the entire flight watching movies. He was really sorry the next day!
We ate lunch at a little cafe in Nottinghill - the Lazy Daisy Cafe. I had read about it before we left and when we stumbled upon it, we decided it looked like a fun place to eat. The food was okay, but nothing special. One of TMT's goals for London was to eat fish and chips, so we were able to check that off our list after this lunch. While we were in Notthinghill, we tried to go to the Portobello Road Market, but we couldn't find it. I was really disappointed, as I love a good flea market, and I was hoping to find some unique things to bring home.
Our next stop was the Tower of London. We took a tour led by a Yeoman. I have been on this tour twice before, but I still love it. I am a history nerd, and I love the story of Anne Boleyn and Queen Catherine. We saw the tower where Anne Boleyn stayed right before her coronation and also a few years later right before her execution. They also have an exhibit on the Crown Jewels at the Tower. I think the crowns they have here are probably fakes and the real ones are locked up somewhere else, but it's still fun to look. No pictures allowed in the Crown Jewels exhibit, so I can't show you what they look like, but trust me - they are impressive.
After the Tower, we headed back to the hotel for a little rest. We both fell asleep and had to drag ourselves out of bed to head to our final stop of the day - Covent Garden for dinner.
I want to preface this by saying that I love to eat. It really is one of my favorite forms of entertainment! So - a lot of my stories about this trip will be about the food that I ate - good and bad. Some of the best food in London is Indian food. I love Indian food, and anytime we are in a big city, I have to eat it! Although it is not TMT's fave, he indulges my love for it and goes along with me. For our first dinner in London, we went to Punjab, which was some of the best Indian food we have ever eaten. We had veggie samosas, which is basically a pastry filled with mashed up veggies and fried. I got my standard chicken tikka masala, and TMT got some other really spicy chicken dish. I think the menu said it had spices that gave it a pickle taste. Not my cup of tea, but TMT seemed to like it.
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