Hey Journal!

Wow! Today was a really HOT day! It was about 82 degrees out, but the sun was beating down all day! It was great though! I was so happy to be wearing shorts!

This morning, we got up around 9:45 and headed out of the hotel around 10:30. First we took a bus over to the Maida Vale area to take a little walk around, and we got breakfast at a little cafe.

Then we took the tube from Maida Vale to Archway, and walked around there for a little bit.

At about 2:00, we took the tube over to Moorgate and we looked up the place that Dan used to work at when he studied in London in college. They had moved their office, but it wasn't far away.

We went in the building, and took the elevator up to the 7th floor. The office was really small, and there was no air conditioning in the building at all! It was unbelievably hot in there! The office was empty except for one Indian woman. Dan remembered her from when he had worked there, so he went over to say Hi! He introduced himself, and said, "I used to intern here back in 2002..." and she said "No." lol She had no idea who he was, and completely dismissed the idea that she could possibly have known him! He mentioned the names of the other people who had been there, and that sort of jogged her memory, I guess! She said only one woman was still there, but she was "in the Loo!"

When she returned, she recognized Dan right away, and even remembered his name, She gave him a big hug, and then they talked a little. After about 5 minutes, she had to leave to go pick up her son, or something like that, and so we departed. We stopped to use the bathroom there, and then took the tube to Leicester Square to meet our friend Dan.

He was waiting for us there, and we arrived a couple minutes after 3.

I was sooo hot out, and we headed over to the london Transport Museum to see about buying another Underground poster or some souvenirs. We got there, and unfortunately we didn't see any that really caught our eyes, so we left empty handed.

Then we took the tube to Green Park and took a walk around Buckingham Palace. It wasn't really that nice looking today because they are erecting a big stage and stands for the Queen's Jubilee, and you could barely see the palace, and it was very construction-ish!

From there, we walked down the Mall and made our way to Trafalgar Square. We stopped to take some pictures with the big lions, and there was a group of girls in front of us who were absolutely WILD! One girl asked me to take a picture of them, and I actually wound up taking about 15 because as they were all trying to climb up on the statue, they were falling all over, and pulling people up, and it was INSANE! I think there are some funny pics in there with the posed one at the end!

So, we got our picture here, and then walked down to Westminster and Parliament. We passed 10 Downing Street, and then took some pictures of "Big Ben."

We decided to go for lunch to a pub that we had gone to last year, and enjoyed. It was over near Harrod's, so we took the tube there, and then got lunch. I got a big chicken roast, and it was very good. My meal was much bigger than Dan and Dan's!

After we left, we had perhaps the most devastating event of our tripe. We were all walking down the road, and I asked Dan which Underground station was the nearest. As I was waiting for his response, I reached into my pocket to take out my phone to use the TubeMap App to figure out our route. Just as I took out the phone, a woman who had a bicycle smashed into my arm and my phone went FLYING! It was like a slow motion scene watching it fall, and I went to grab it at the last second, and flipped it over. It hit the pavement HARD with a really loud THUD! I lot louder than I would have expected. I was so scared. I flipped it over, and SMASHED! The entire back of my phone was shattered to pieces.

I was devastated. Beside myself! You know how much I love my phone... I never let anyone else touch it or use it, and I always clean it with little monitor wipes and stuff. It was over a year old and didn't have one scratch on it. And now, total destruction.

I was lucky though, looking back, that it still works, and it wasn't the front glass that was broken. I looked online and it seems like they charge $29 at the Apple Store to replace the back glass, so let's hope that's the case. It isn't unreasonable.

So, aside from that, the bicycle woman said she was sorry, and left me with a cut on my arm. That'll heal, too bad my iPhone won't heal by itself!

Anyway, we went to Sainsbury's to get some drink, and I wound up getting Smirnoff Cranbury and Vodka cans! They're pretty cool... they're premixed, and tasted really good.

We also got a big jug of water to keep at the hotel.

When we got back to the hotel, I took a shower to get freshened up from the day. I sweated so much today, and needed to get cleaned up!

Dan got some ice for our drinks, and put it in the shopping bags. Unfortunately, it started melting on the floor, so we used the hotel Laundry bag, and tied up the edges so that it made a little pool, and the water would stay inside!

We watched some game shows on the channel, Challenge. We watched Blockbusters, Bullseye, and an old episode of Millionaire! We started to have some of our drinks, and at about 10:00, we went out to a bar to get some drinks. We stayed there for about 30 minutes or so, and then headed over to another bar a little ways down the road.

We had a fun time, and by the time we got back to the hotel, it was about 2:30am! A pretty late night! We need to have at least one!

Anyway, exhausted now...so off to bed!

Until tomorrow..