The last of our first days here.

This should be the last post (for awhile) that I document every little detail of the day. For our own journaling purposes, Brent and I want to try to remember as much as we can about those first few days here because they were crazy, fun, exhausting and important. There was so much going on that if we don't write it all down, we'll forget it.

Saturday morning, we decided to have a little more fun and explore with out having the pressure of running errands, well except for going to the grocery store. The general goal for the day was to just take it easy. The jet lag (I know! I mentioned it again!) was really getting to us at this point so we just needed to get out and get some fresh air. I kindly refer to jet lag as "fuzzy brain" because that's how it feels. Like there is a thick cloud of fuzz covering your brain. No clear thoughts, just fuzz.

These little beauties are easily found. This one is across the street from our apartment. Unlike what we'd been told, they aren't just for tourists to take obnoxious pictures in, people actually use them. If red's not your color, they have it in black. And no, we didn't take these pictures as some sort of tribute to Harry Potter. We had no idea about the whole Ministry of Magic thing until people commented on our facebook photo album and I had to google it to figure out what people were talking about. We haven't read Harry Potter, or seen any of the movies other than the first one. I know! Blasphemous, right? *note the sarcasm

We headed out a bit late (11-ish?) so we needed some food. Little did we know that the City is a ghost town on the weekends! Most of the businesses here cater to the business people that buzz around all week. We didn't make that connection. Finally, we saw a McDonalds. It was open. Surprised?

We had passed the London Bridge the day before but wanted to walk across it, so we did. The bridge itself wasn't anything spectacular. The bridge that's there today isn't the famous bridge. That one, well one of them, is in Arizona. The London Bridge has a pretty interesting history, so go look it up on Wikipedia or something. The bridge had some great views. A lot of it, since we were so new to the area, didn't mean anything to us, but we did recognize the Tower Bridge and a few other landmarks. It was a nice little walk.

I think the theme here is "Hey! Let's see how many pictures we can take of the Tower Bridge since it's the only thing we recognize."

After the bridge, we headed towards the grocery store but first came across this monument. It is a monument to the great London fire of 1666. It was built a few years after that. It's now tucked away between some building, hiding for unknowing foreigners to come across on a Saturday afternoon walk. Ok, not really, it actually is one of the prominent attractions in London. It's on a lot of the maps and the tube stop nearby is called Monument. We just didn't know we were so close to it. There are 300+ steps to the top that someday we'll pay the few pounds to climb. We were definitely not up for it that day.

The supermarket, being closer to some tourist spots was open, luckily. That was an interesting experience. Being in the heart of the City, it's small and there isn't a whole lot of variety. We had made a basic list and then just kind of went with what we could find for the rest of it. I had expected the bill to pretty hefty, but it wasn't so bad. Only £50 for several days worth of food. It was fun to see new things or the UK version of things we normally enjoy.

After we got home, we decided to call it a day and that we were just going to stay in for the rest of the night. I did some more nesting and cooking and Brent did some online research to figure out where and how to get to church for the next day.

It may not be a great pic or a fancy meal but I got to cook! It was the first time I had made a meal since the week we moved out of our apartment in LA. It was nice. The kitchen here is very poorly furnished, but I had enough materials to cook a basic meal. Hallelujah! We can finally stop eating out for every meal!

Sunday, we caught the tube and went to Hyde Park/Kensington to go to church. We went to the Hyde Park Ward. It's the main ward in this building, the Stake Centre. Like how I spelled that? The building also houses the London Institute, the Family History Centre, the Employment Resource Centre and the mission office for the London Mission. We'd been told that this was the hub of the church for England. They weren't kidding! It's a big, nice building right down the street from some of the biggest museums in London. It's also just a few minutes tube ride from Buckingham Palace. The building itself was cool. It's just part of a big row of buildings and it has several floors. The foyer is more of a visitors center than lobby. The ward was big too. Lots of Americans. Lots. We felt very comfortable there but also a bit lost. There were so many visitors in Relief Society that they didn't even have us introduce ourselves. They asked if there were any new move ins and then sent out a general "welcome" to any visitors. Wow. Big ward.

The rest of Sunday was spent napping, cooking, talking to family on Skype and getting ready for Brent's first day of work that was coming up in the morning. Doesn't he look snazzy? Don't mind the poor quality of the pic. It was early and I was tired and he was in a hurry. Excuses, excuses. Right?

See? That wasn't so bad! Much shorter than the last post.