Day 7: Tears From Heaven

It is our final day in London and of course it’s raining. Five days here and we have yet to do the creme de la creme of tourist activities. Bum bum bum……….!!! The changing of the guard. I had thought that the changing of guard would involve at most four people: two toy soldiers standing guard and the two that would walk out, presumably high-fiving as they relinquish their post to their mate. I’m not sure what you picture it to be, but if it is similar to mine, you could not be more wrong.

The changing of the guard is incredibly elaborate, loud and full of flourish. Which was wonderful on a gloomy, wet and overcast day. Honestly, I did not even notice the moment that the guard left his post and joined his friends in the group. The changing of the guard involves two separate royal bands, crowd control and a small group of toy soldiers yelling orders and walking back and forth while holding large assault rifles and swords. If that doesn’t excite you then you were probably never a child, which according to what I know about biology is impossible, so you should probably turn to science.

In an effort to be part of The Church while away we’re visiting as many churches as we can provided we’re not traveling on Sunday. In London we were privileged to visit Hillsong London. Hillsong London meets in the Dominion Theater in the downtown theater district. As far as I can tell they rent out The Dominion on Sundays and do all of their setup and teardown everyday. As we were singing we thought “I don’t know any of these songs…” It wasn’t until half way through that I remembered… our church plays songs written by other people, Hillsong writes their own songs- so it makes sense that we may not know them. It was a beautiful theater, a wonderful service full of tear inducing worship and a challenging and entertaining message.

What a refreshing reminder that God is alive and vibrant around the world.

Thanks to Moriah and Shelby’s suggestions and Sebatian’s reminder: Museums in London are FREE. We decided to visit the British Museum. (This decision was made easier due to the fact that it was raining and being indoors sounded like a great idea). England has ruled in just about every corner of the planet throughout history. With that in mind: their museums are AMAZING. If I was more of a history buff I could easily see myself spending a week in the museums in London. We saw amazing statues, mummies, samurais, creepy baby heads and world art from Africa, Asia, Greece, North America, South America and beyond. I’m not huge on museum’s but wow…

On our way home we tried our first bout on the London Overground. After a few mistakes we made it to our neighborhood. We walked by our home which is on the fourth floor above La Forchetta, an Itialian pizza place. Our feet were hurting, our stomachs were hungry so we went to the closest bar to get a heavy meal. Unfortunately, they didn’t serve food so we headed out. We ended up at The Misty Moon a Thai British Fusion Pub. Weird? Probably… We wouldn’t know because the kitchen closed for an undetermined amount of time right when we arrived so we headed out. We then headed to another pub, no kitchen. It seems we were not meant to eat. Finally we headed down to Brick Lane which we intended to hit earlier for the Brick Lane Market. We ended up at Fika, a Swedish restaurant, and ended our evening with two glasses of wine, kebab’s and veggies. It was delicious, a very cute atmosphere and a nice finishing meal to a wonderful trip to London.

At the end of our stay in Dublin Bethany said, “I hope we don’t leave a city without wanting to return”. I can’t speak to the cities we haven’t been to yet but I know that wasn’t the case with London. We look forward to going back in the future. Until then… On to Paris!

Cheers,
B&B