Family visits!!

After a long week of finishing all my papers, Thursday rolled around and my family arrived. On Wednesday night I didn't fall asleep till flight aware told me their flight left, which was around midnight here. Thursday after class I could finally see them.  I met them at their hotel, and gave them all big hugs. After that, we walked to Pizza Express for lunch. After that we found Abbey Road and Abbey Road Studios. We walked back to their hotel after so they could check in. We settled in the room and then around 6:20 walked over to ISH so that we could eat in the bar there and I could show them around where I hangout there. After we were done eating we decided to check out Piccadilly Circus. We found M&M World and had fun looking at all the different colored M&M's and all the other souvenirs.

Friday we got a late start into the day, but we went to the Tower of London and spent 4 hours there. Since I had already been there I was a bit bored of it by the time the 3rd hour rolled around and just couldn't wait to leave and find some place for lunch. We ate at a place called Bodean's which was kind of American in a way. They had the Wisconsin v Michigan State game on TV there which we thought was pretty cool, even though it was a re-run. After eating we went and walked across the Tower Bridge. We ended up walking along Oxford Street and went into some stores.

Saturday we had our day trip to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. Windsor Castle was really incredible. A flag was flying on one of the towers signifying that the Queen was in while we were there. If only we could have seen her... We got to see the public estates and we saw Queen Mary's Doll house. It was a massive doll house. After touring Windsor Castle we ate at a restaurant and had fish and chips. I managed to eat half of my fish which I thought was pretty good since I don't like fish, but that was pretty much our only option since we were on a tour with the big group.  We then went to Stonehenge, which I was not excited about since I didn't find it too fascinating the first time I went there. I didn't really listen to the audio guide, just walked around the circle and didn't get much out of it again. My parents and brother didn't find it spectacular either, so it isn't just me. We finally made it to Bath, my favorite city in England so far, but they only gave us an hour there. There is pretty much nothing to do or see in Bath with just an hour of time. I showed them the Circus and the Royal Crescent and pretty much after walked to those places we had to turn around to get back on the bus to head back to London. It was a long day but our tour guide was hilarious and he definitely made the tour. That night we got back around 9ish I think and we got dropped off at Marble Arch so we had to walk our way back to the hotel/MTH. But we had to eat supper first, so we found a pub off of Oxford Street.

Sunday morning we walked to Primrose Hill.  There were so many people running and walking in Regents Park with their dogs and children. It was really nice to see so many people active on a Sunday morning. The weather while my family has been here has been rainy and cold with really strong winds. I blame them for bringing the bad weather over here because last week it was 60 out and sunny. On top of Primrose Hill was freezing. We then hit up the Camden Market. There were so many shops and stalls full of things for you to buy ranging from shoes, clothes, foods from all around the world. It was a nice afternoon of wandering around, despite being so cold out. Later on we ventured back out into the cold to find some place to eat supper at. We couldn't decide on a place or the places were too expensive so we found ourselves back at Pizza Express.

Monday I had class from 10-1, so my family was going to check out Westminster Abbey but it was closed due to some Commonwealth thing and the Queen was supposed to give a speech, but she has been sick with some stomach virus or something for the past couple weeks and had to cancel her speech. Then they found the British Museum. After my class we met up and went to Madame Tussoad's, a wax museum. It was super cool in there and I really enjoyed it. After we went to their hotel and decided what our plan was for the rest of the day. We ate at a pub and then I took them to the Euston Tap, a little pub with 27 beers on tap that is in an old gateway house. My dad and brother really liked it, and tried beers they'd never heard of before.

I will add pictures when I have more time!!