The London Eye

The London Eye

 We saved the London Eye for our last adventure in London. The evening of July 14 we boarded a pod on the London Eye for a half-hour ride. The London Eye is like a giant Ferris wheel, but instead of a seat for a couple people, you ride inside a egg-shaped glass pod with up to 20 other people. Because of the immense size of the ride they aren’t able to stop and start it, so it keeps moving as people step out, safety inspections are done, and new riders board.

One of the glass pods

"Afraid" of heights!

Erika’s not a fan of heights, but she loved the views of the city and she became the resident expert of London for the tourists in the pod; able to name and point out many local landmarks. Jason enjoyed the amazing views (especially being able to go up higher than Big Ben), but he was also fascinated with how this big contraption worked

Amazing view of Big Ben, Parliment, and Westminster Abbey

After the ride, we enjoyed a hand-in-hand walk back to our hotel near the London Eye for a final night’s sleep in London before heading home the next morning.

Our Last Day in the UK

A comment on Jason's driving throughout the UK:

Jason, thank you! Driving 2,000 of the 2,200 miles we put on our rental car is impressive.  Your patience during the round-abouts, and my trying to figure out just where we were was unbelievable.  You drove in super heavy traffic and on muddy roads that hadn’t seen a car in weeks…we truly traveled all over the isle of Britannia and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world…you are the most amazing husband! I love you!-e

Westminster Abbey, London (Westminster)

Since Westminster Abbey was on the must-see list for both of us and it happens to be open later on Wednesdays we decided to save it for out last day in the UK. When we returned to London and dropped our luggage at the hotel, we made our way over to Westminster Abbey. It is a truly breathtaking structure and unfortunate photography was not allowed inside so we don’t have many photos to share.

Allie (magnet) came along!

 We arrived a half-hour before the last entrance and 1 ½ hours before closing time for the evening. As we arrived we entered to the sounds of Evensong and the beautiful organ playing. We slowly made our way around some of the Abbey taking in many of the over 3000 graves in the Abbey. We saw kings and queens, prime ministers, poets, authors, and scientists along with many names we did not recognize. At this point in the trip Erika was not feeling well at all. Since she’s been to Westminster before, she decided to sit down and rest while Jason did some more exploring on his own. He made his way back toward some of the chapels only to find that as the last people had entered and worked their way through, security was blocking off areas. This unfortunately the whole quire area which we had skipped thinking that Jason would be able to go back and explore it more after the worship service was over. 

Notice size of people.

After Jason explored what he could we decided to leave since the Abbey was only open about 30 more minutes and we wanted plenty of time to spend in the gift shop. We had big hopes from the items we’d seen through the windows about what we might purchase. We’d wanted to purchase a significant piece of art and were really hoping to find a nativity set, as we collect those. We made our way out the door and went to the adjacent door to the gift shop and found it locked. The guard told us to use the other door just outside the gate. When we got to the door a store employee blocked our way telling us that the gift shop was closed. 

We explained our situation and he agreed to let us in only for 2 specific items. We were barely given enough time to choose a Christmas ornament and a CD before being told by another employee that we had to leave. We were extremely frustrated with the way we were treated at the gift shop and at Westminster. We didn’t understand why we were blocked from areas of the Abbey during “business hours” or why the gift shop was closing before the Abbey. Shouldn’t they have stayed open later to allow those last few out the door to come in and spend some money?