London bridge is falling down!

So, first things first. A very special shout out for the newlyweds, Mr. and Mrs. Dot and Jake Williams. Congratulations and we wish you the best!

Now, the the less important biz. We left Atlanta last night at 11pm. The Atlanta airport was a breeze and we had plenty of time to exchange money, etc, before boarding the plane.

Bye, Mommies!

We even had time to look up a bird's butt! Meet Kevin:

Neither of us got as much sleep as we wished, but more than we thought we'd get, so I guess we're good there.

We made it to London alive! We landed around 12:30 today and it took awhile to get through customs. After we got our massive backpacks situated, we headed to the Tube (remembering to "mind the gap" of course). We got these nifty cards called Oyster cards that are like reusable metro cards.

Turns out, England has some crazies too. We encountered the most charming gentleman rapping and dancing on the train from the airport to our stop near the hostel. It's amazing how dignified people sound with a British accent, no matter what they're talking (or rapping) about. We have video to prove it and we'll upload it later when we have more time!

It's a rainy, cold day in London but the weather was about as bad as it could be and we survived so we think it'll all be uphill from here, knock on wood. We checked into our hostel and it's... a hostel. Nothing really special but it'll do! It's right across the street from the British Museum, so that's pretty cool. Here are a couple of pictures of our lovely abode:

After checking in and unloading our very heavy backpacks (moms and dads, be expecting a box of our unneeded belongings soon) we set out to grab some grub. We were walking along trying to figure out where to have dinner when we happened upon a restaurant named Munchkinz. The sign said that they accept American dollars and Euros as well as pounds, so we figured it was a winner. We dined on traditional British fare (Rachael got the fish and chips and Katie got the shepherd's pie). We drank our Diet Coke and water without ice and did NOT get free refills. Ah, how we miss the comforts of home. After dinner, we were mapping out a game plan for the evening because most of the things we wanted to see were closing shortly and we were both about to fall asleep. Our plan was to walk a few blocks to the Tube and take it to Charing Cross (wherever the heck that is) and ended up being sidetracked by bright sparkly lights. Hello, West End! The source of our distraction was a large sign that said "We Will Rock You". Turns out, this was the theatre playing a musical all with music by QUEEN and Ben Elton. So what do we do? Go to Charing Cross or rock out to some Queen? I think we all know the answer to that one. So, the show starts in half an hour and we're right around the corner at Starbuck's sipping our lattes and writing our entertaining blog posts. All in all, a good first day. Unless the musical sucks. But how could it? It's QUEEN!