London

On Friday, we left on Eurostar for a weekend in London.  The plan was to see Les Mis at the Queen's Theatre and an Arsenal match at the Emirates, and squeeze in all the sights possible in between.  We also got to stay with an old friend from Shreveport and his wife, who have lived in London for almost three years.  

After getting in, we quickly hit the tube to Green Park and walked across to Buckingham Palace to join the mass of people taking pictures in front of the gold and black gates.  As we walked towards Trafalgar Square, we noticed a lot of security and a big crowd of people around a gate.  Suddenly 4 cars rushed out, the middle two being identical Range Rovers.  The first had a rack of clothes in the backseat, and the second had...Prince William.  They sped off with heavy security and the crowd snapping as many photos as they could.  After they cleared out, the only thing left on the street were these horses:

From there we made our way down to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey before heading up to Islington (the N1, as our friend affectionately called it) where we were staying for the weekend.

 That night we saw Denise's favorite musical, Les Mis, at the Queen's Theatre by Leicester Square.  This is the 25th anniversary of the show's running in London, and it is still selling out.  We sat in the front of the balcony and saw a great show, even though we were 15 minutes late due to poor time management at the pub beforehand.

 The next day, we went to London Tower.  Our tour was run by a Yeoman Warder, and he was hilarious as he told us the history of the tower, from the first construction in the 1080s through all the public beheadings and ultimately as the storage ground for the Crown Jewels. 

He was definitely correct when he stated after seeing the Crown Jewels, anything you own will forever seem insignificant.  The diamonds in the crowns, swords, and staffs were unbelievable.  One diamond was called the Star of Africa, was a 530 carat diamond that was originally part of a 3100 carat uncut diamond.  We then headed across Tower Bridge (not London Bridge, a common mistake!)

After a quick walk through the London Borough Market for lunch, we headed up to Ashburton Grove to get ready for the Arsenal v. Sunderland match.  We met up with more friends at an Arsenal pub around the corner from the stadium.

Note that David is sporting the Arsenal jersey from 2000, while Denise has the latest one.

After a few London's Prides, we headed towards Emirates Stadium.

Amazing stadium.

 Even though Arsenal could not overcome the terrible reffing of the match (ended in a draw, 0-0), we had still had an amazing time and brilliant seats.  The fans sitting in our area were hardcore Arsenal fans, and being around them made SEC football fans seem polite and well-mannered.  We will have to leave out 99.9% of what they said during the game from this blog, but they also agreed that the ref needed to "get on with it" and openly expressed their feelings towards the visiting Sunderland fans.  The funniest part, however, was after a long and colorful tirade about the striker Arshavin being lazy, one of the fans commented that it was 4 o'clock and he could use some proper tea.

Seats right on the 18, 18 rows back from the pitch.

After a night of fish & chips at the Narrow Boat back in the N1, we packed up for our Sunday morning return to Paris.