Then we headed off to the tube station to go down to Westminster Abbey. When we drove by the Abbey yesterday on the bus I was amazed to find that it's in a rather crowded area, just across the street from Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. For some reason, I had pictured it being off on its own somewhere, on a big piece of grassy land. We thoroughly enjoyed our tour through the Abbey. We received an audio guide when we entered, which was included in the admission price. It was a really neat little machine that looked like an early flip phone. It had audio narration done by Jeremy Irons, as well as some photos and video.
Photography isn't allowed inside the Abbey, but here are some photos we took from the outside:
I took this photo kneeling on the ground, and I still couldn't get the top of the Abbey in the shot. It's really that big.
I had to have my photo taken at the door to the Abbey Librarian's office:
An external shot, including the pretty bell tower: 
By the time we had wandered around the Abbey for a few hours, we were really hungry. So we found the first restaurant that was affordable and looked good. I can't even remember the name now- but it's an Italian style place. I had a pizza and Logan had a BLT with really thick slices of English style bacon. On the way to the restaurant we passed the horseguards. There are mounted soldiers outside the gates each day, and there is always a crowd gathered to take pictures and admire the horses. I don't envy these guys and their job. They have to sit there and look stern for hours on end: 
After lunch we stopped in Trafalgar Square so Logan could take my picture with one of the huge lions. There are four of them, each guarding a corner of the square around Nelson's Column. To give you an idea of how big and high these statues are, here's a shot from several feet away (with Big Ben in the background). It's over five feet from the ground to the lions' feet:
I had a time climbing up, especially since the metal lion was really hot. And Logan got some lovely photos of my rear on my way up... but I won't share those here. I did finally manage to get up there though! 
Next, we headed way out toward the edge of London to explore the Natural History Museum. As with many of the London museums, the beauty and grandeur of the building is just as impressive as what's inside!Here's a shot of the outside of the building. You can tell it's the Natural History Museum because of all of the stone animals! It's a long building, and I felt like I was entering Hogwarts:
We saw lots of great things inside, and the amazing part is that it's free, just like the British Museum we went to yesterday. I can't believe they let people wander around inside of these gorgeous buildings for free. Here is the entry hall. There is a huge long dinosaur skeleton on the ground floor: 
My favorite part of the museum was the hall of birds. There was a whole display on extinct birds, and we got to see a stuffed Dodo. Very cool, but it made me sad that they're extinct: 
After a quick stop at a refreshment stand for some Powerade, we were back on the tube again, toward Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. This also was free, which meant that we got to spend a few hours (it was open until 9pm tonight) looking at Botticellis, Monets, da Vincis and van Goghs without having to pay a penny!Our last stop this evening was the Covent Garden area. We went to a restaurant called Belgo Central (http://www.belgo-restaurants.co.uk/), which I had read about in the Rick Steves guidebook. It's an underground Belgian beer hall and restaurant. Logan had a Belgian amber beer called Palm, and wild boar sausages with mashed potatoes, which he enjoyed. I had a house salad and mashed potatoes. They were wonderful, with bits of carrots, cabbage and leeks mixed in. Defintely a place to go again if we get the chance! Here's what the outside of the restaurant looked like:
After all of that, it was time to come back to our room, shower, and relax. We're ready for day three tomorrow!
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