Last day in London

[fenchurch]

Big hugs to gillo for the *wonderful* driving directions!!! We had no trouble at all finding our way down to Hampton Court from the airport or back to our hotel from Hampton Court!

Right after I posted our potential schedule yesterday, rackham and I started chatting about the idea of swapping when we were planning to go see what... and Gillo brought up the brilliant point that driving the car from the airport down to Hampton Court would not be all that difficult.

So, this morning we got ready and headed in to the city for the last time. We really only had one thing left to do (at least that we'd have time for): The London Eye. I'm so glad we waited! It was packed when we walked by there the other day, but today we were able to walk right up to the boarding area. We ended up only having to share our compartment (they're designed to hold 20 or so) with two other people, a lovely couple on vacation from Australia. We took turns taking photos of each other, which means Rackham and I have got two photos now to prove we were actually here together! The London Eye has an absolutely fantastic view, but it's definitely not the sort of thing to do if you have any problems with heights.

We hopped the Underground around to the Piccadilly line and out to Heathrow... very likely our last ride until our next visit to London! We picked up the rental car and resumed the roles we'd done in Australia: Rackham driving and me sitting in the passenger's seat occasionally saying "left side" and "drifting." For the latter, we've found that when Rackham will sometimes start to drift so that the driver's side of the car (the right side) is in the left side of the lane (meaning we're straddling our lane and the one to the left (usually the shoulder)).

Does anyone know why the UK uses metric everywhere except the roads? That was a bit of a surprise! After driving in Canada and Australia, we were expecting everything to be kilometers and kph and so forth... very strange!

Hampton Court has gone on our list of places to visit again the next time we're in England. We got to see quite a bit of it today, but nowhere near all of it... and we ended up abandoning the audioguide fairly early on. It was VERY informative, but highly chatty and we didn't have that sort of time -- I think if we'd listened to everything, we would have only been able to see one part of the palace. As it is, we just wandered around for a bit then headed out to the thing we'd really gone out there for: the hedge maze!! That was so incredibly cool (I feel like I've been saying that a lot lately, but it's true!), and it's something I've wanted to see ever since I was a kid!

I'm hoping to post more about all of this stuff later, probably after we get home. I figure, if I'm not too tired on the flight home, I'll have plenty of time to fill in some of the blanks... plus there are photos!

I'm so glad we're done with London for now... I don't think my feet could handle anymore. We still need to work out where we're headed next, but we are going to swing into Rickmansworth tomorrow for lunch on our way out (so I can have my picture taken sitting on my own in a small cafe). After that, we may look at heading up toward Warwick, which would also mean we might get a chance to meet up with gillo in person!