Ryan & Amanda's British Adventure - Days 1-3

Catching People Up

We met up Friday at Heathrow and made it to our hotel relatively easily.  It was a rainy day so we didn't venture into central London at all but just tried to get to sleep early and prepare for the day ahead.  Days two and three we wandered around London a fair bit, which we will try to chronicle in this blog.  We're currently enjoying a relaxing rail trip to Edinburgh where we will start the 5 night Scottish leg of our trip.

The Pro's and Cons of Beards - 

My beard is now at its all time most awesome.  Amanda rolled her eyes upon reading the preceding sentence.   Yesterday at the London Eye the ticket agent told me "not only do you have an epic beard, but an epic name."  I was left in total agreement, my beard is epic.  But my beard isn't 100% awesome all the time, as hard as that might be to believe... part of the price of epicness is that sauces, coffee, and foodstuffs have a tendency to get caught in the mustache; keeping the beard clean is a constant struggle.

Pictures For Friends and Family 

Amanda and I in St. James Park after viewing Buckingham Palace.  This picture was immediately dubbed Beauty and the Beast.

We took this picture just to show cappuccino froth getting stuck in my beard but this picture came out much better than the 'after' so I decided just to put this up.

Tower of London after seeing the Crown Jewels

I was left feeling very manly after Amanda did not recall the significance of this sign.  It wasn't long before she had maneuvered me into singing the muffin man song.

Mom & Dad, thanks for treating Amanda and I to some special treats on our trip.  Here we are enjoying the Champagne Pod on the London Eye.

View from the London Eye.

Enjoying a river cruise with Amanda.

Me enjoying a pint at the Anchor, a bar on the south bank of the Thames that hosted both Shakespeare and Dickens in their times.

Each time we went by the houses of Parliament and 'Big Ben' I just couldn't believe architecture that was on display.  Can't really think of anything in the states that compares.

Not sure exactly what the point of this was but it was on display in the White Tower Armory in the Tower of London.  

Psst... I'm not really on the phone!!! I'm just posing.

The Tower Bridge on our open top bus tour.

We saw Wicked Saturday night.  It was a fun show and was incredibly well done by the cast.