Heading home!!

Travel Day. We got to Gatwick Airport with plenty of time. Checked gate status: nothing. Went shopping, then checked gate status: nothing. Did some more shopping and 10min later, the gate status said GATE CLOSING!!! We sprinted to the gate with our bags of duty free stuff, and made it just in time. The flight home (with crappy movie) was fine - a very jealous Stephen sat next to a guy who had Chelsea season tickets, went to the England-Brazil game, and to the FA cup final. We got to Montreal and hurried to jump on the earlier bus home to Ottawa.

We were delayed about a half hour when the bus had to pull over on the highway halfway home to help a poor woman having a screaming psychotic episode on the bus. Poor lady, she was very scared. She eventually had to be removed from the bus by police and put into an ambulance and we were off again

We arrived to a rainy Ottawa and to our home sweet home!

Clouds!

Macbeth and a Whirlwind tour of London

Beth was great and got us tickets to a show at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre where she was working. We watched the matinee performance of Macbeth and enjoyed it very much ("Out damn spot!")!! What a great theatre! Thanks Beth!

Did lots of walking today, through Regent's Park, Green's Park, Hyde Park then St.James Park, past Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, BigBen, Westminster Abbey, and Trafalgar Square. It was a whirlwind tour, but it was still nice to catch glimpses of them all... just means we'll have to come back again soon to do a proper job of visiting. Unfortunately/Fortunately, we found the famous pigeons of Trafalgar Square to be missing (apparently they were 'banned' a year or two ago)! The parks were lovely to walk through with so many Londonites relaxing and enjoying the open green spaces.

Stephen was excited to be able to catch some of the live Sens game, with the puck being dropped at 1:30am England time. He managed to stay awake for the first 10 minutes of the game (which were terrible) and then fell asleep only to miss the rest of the game which ended up being the most exciting yet!

Go Sens go (1-2)!!

Hours of walking: 4

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

Big Ben

People relaxing in Regent's Park

Pelicans, what pelicans?

Buckingham Palace with tourist

Trafalgar Square (minus pigeons)

Pub hopping in London

Spent the day shopping in Crouch End and then met up with some of Steve's friends from his days at Lancaster University. We had drinks and then dinner at a nice italian restaurant with Dave, Rich and Zara and was introduced to Pimm's by the pitcher (our summer drink of choice from now on!). Stopped off at a pub to see England score against Brazil, and then to another pub which looked like it was made out of caves (really really old!). Good times!

Hours of walking: 1

The London Eye

Steve, Dave and Rich