Boxing Day

Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, in London is the equivalent to Black Friday in the States, only a lot scarier. We decided to avoid London for as long as possible to so that morning we went to Greenwich instead. We went to the Royal Observatory and saw where Greenwich Mean Time is set.

Then we took a boat cruise on the Thames to get back to downtown London. It was freezing on the water and we braved the top deck for a little while and only to get pictures before we ran back downstairs.

After the boat dropped us off we walked to Buckingham Palace and then Hyde Park to check out a German Christmas Festival going on. I introduced Denise to schnitzel, and we walked around the park.

 

From Hyde we walked through Kensington Gardens and then to Portobello Road to see the market going on. Side note: I loved all the parks and gardens in London! This is also what I miss about Paris. Their parks are huge, and they are gorgeous ( maybe because they all used to be land from palaces but whatever). Anyway, I miss that. Turns out there are over 1700 parks and gardens in London. Amazing!

 

After walking around all day we decided to brave Oxford Street (huge shopping street) on our way to find fish and chips for dinner. It was terrifying. This is a picture from about 4pm and the crowds were still out. The pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks was scarier than the street traffic in the road, so that's where we walked.

Finally made it to Wellingtons where we had fish and chips, and this mashed peas thing (turned out to be pretty good actually).

After dinner we walked to the Somerset house where an ice skating rink had been set up. Also, a giant tree sponsored by Tiffany's.  I very much enjoyed this.

 

That night, Denise and I let Jason go see Phantom (which is amazing but we had both already seen in London), and we went to see a movie - Me and Orson Welles- kinda different, but we saw it where it premiered and still enjoyed Zac Effron.

After the movie we decided to call it a night, especially since we had church bright and early the next morning and we had walked ridiculous amounts that day. So worth it.