Day Two in London

19 June
For some unknown reason I was awake in the middle of the night from 1 - 4 am, so I booked a flight from London City Airport to Amsterdam, and planned the rest of our time in England. Gordon has a cousin (with wife) in a city way up north called Darlington, but we've decided it's too far for us to go in the short time we have here.
Amazingly, it started to get light at 3:45am!
Breakfast at Alhambra was a perfect start to the day - fried egg, bacon, sausage and toast(Gordon only), fried tomato and baked beans, plus OJ and tea.
On working out our transport for the day, we discovered a brilliant system called the Oyster card, which is like a prepaid debit card for all the different modes of transport in London. We walked alongside the Thames River towards the Tower of London (which, by the way, is much more than just a tower - it's a group of buildings). We got there too early, so hung out at Starbucks. The audio guide (a pre-recorded commentary on all the sights at the Tower) was really good value (thanks for the tip, Trent and Sue) - see photo of Gordon above, and we were just blown away by everything about the place, especially the sense of history. I have to confess I also enjoyed the bling (the Crown Jewels) - there's something about millions of dollars of gorgeous, sparkling precious stones that really touches a girl's heart. (I'd hate you to think I'm shallow.) It seemed just the right thing to have a cup of tea in such an English setting, so that's what we did.
Lunch was sushi in a nearby park. By this time, it was windy and quite cold. Don't get me wrong - I am very grateful that we've had such great weather so far.
After such a lot of walking around, our afternoon nap at the hotel lasted till nearly 6pm. Next on the agenda was a double decker bus ride to Hyde Park, then walked around till we came across a restaurant called "Bumbles", where we got a three-course meal for ten pounds. Just around the corner was Buckingham Palace, then a walk along The Mall, followed by Trafalgar Square at twilight, where the fountains were lit up an irridescent blue.
What a full day - we sure covered a lot of ground and a heap of history. Oh, I almost forgot to mention this - on the way to the underground, we came across a huge crowd of skaters, who looked like they were having heaps of fun.