london....

hello from london! you'll have to excuse the lack of capitals but for some reason in the land of driving on the wrong side of the road the keyboards shift keys are switched around too. we are having sooooooooooooo much fun here. i feel surprisingly at home, considering that yesterday, tuesday, was our first full day. we are staying at a fantastic hostel in swiss cottage, just north of central london. sleeping with 18 other people in the room has been a very smooth adjustment and sharing bathrooms and showers with men has been strangely normal also. i've never watched anyone else shave except for my dad and stewart. we arrived here on monday, at gatwick airport. We figured out how to get to our hostel and tried to stay up till 9;30 or so, a grand total of 30 something hours being awake. on tuesday we were up and out for the day early. we started out at the tower of london, the london bridge, and walked along the thames river until we arrived at the shakespeare globe theatre. we then walked across the millenium bridge and went to st. paul's cathedral. it was so beautiful. the arches, butteresses, frescos, mosaics, tombs, crypts, chapels and sculptures were amazing. We knew we weren't in kansas anymore. we climbed 163 stairs to get to the top dome and look down on the main church area, and then i climbed to the very top of the dome and looked out at london from what seemed like thousands of miles in the sky. stew forgot his jacket, and we had to climb the 163 stairs again, and did i get my exercise, along the narrow and winding staircase to get the jacket. it was a great day. we saw the westminster cathedral, the parliament buildings, big ben and picadilly/soho at night. the party atmosphere here is wild and people are so fashionable. stew loved picadilly, with all the lights, at night. we are booked for phantom of the opera for tonight. oh, and mom, we found the stockpot!! we are set to go there before the phantom. we bought discount tickets, of course, but it was still 100 bucks for tickets. stewart loved picadilly. well, love to everyone and photos will come once i remember to take the little usb thingie out of my backpack which is locked up at the present moment.
love amanda and stewart