Our second day in London began with the loss of one company member. Alison arrived from Orlando, and she and Rachel went on ahead by train to Sunderland. Nicki, Karen, and I first went to Regent St. and did a bit of shopping. I think our favorite store was Marks & Spencer, the very cool clothing store that has a grocery store on its lower levels. The food stores at M&S a bit high end in terms of price, or as the Brits would say "One pays top whack there," but the food is really good quality and they have a lot of things the other supermarkets don't have. Since both of them refused to use umbrellas in the rainy London weather, Nicki and Karen both bought hats at M&S. I kept trying on the wedding hats and keep wanting to go back and get one.

After Regents Street, we went took the tube to Parliament Square where Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey are located. As we got on, Nicki had her second misadventure on the tube. As we got off the escalator down to the trains, a huge gust of window whipped through the hallway and took Nicki's hat all the way back up the escalator. So, she had to ride back up the escalator and retrieve her hat. I think I heard her start snorting, she was laughing so hard.

Although one sees pictures of these buildings everywhere, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey really are very impressive and beautiful in real life. The size of things is really only felt when one stands there and looks at them. I think it's because the lines of the buildings work in terms of layers and you really only get the sense of the layers when you can see them in three dimensions instead of two. At any rate, we all really enjoyed seeing them but decided against waiting in the queue for Westminster Abbey because it's quite a bit of pound to get in and there was a long line. Instead, we stopped of next door at St. Margaret's for a bit of rest and to decide what do next.