After our brief 24 hour trip to NYC, we hopped on a red eye and officially crossed the pond to London, England.  Exhausted but excited, we landed and started to navigate London public transit.

Neither of us had ever tried to get around a city in another country before, so we thought London was a good place to start... you know since they speak English there and all.  I'm glad we decided to ease ourselves into it because it was harder to get around than we anticipated.  Even though everything is in the same language, our ears had trouble accepting the different accent at first.  We had our smart phones with us to help get around, but the street names are all so different that we felt like they wouldn't stick in our brains for any helpful length of time!  We were grateful that public transit was all very clean and punctual, and we eventually adjusted and found our way to our stay in Brixton.

  First ride on a double decker bus!

This is the adorable guest house we stayed in.  We loved it!

By the time we found our way to our room and dropped off our stuff, it was close to dinner time.  We decided to head down to the water and make the London Eye our introduction to the city.

Big Ben was just as pretty as we hoped he would be :)

We grabbed some fish and chips for dinner... as if there were any other options!

We loved the Eye.  What a cool way to see everything for the first time.

Once we finished up on the Eye, we walked around and just took it all in.  

The next morning, our friends Ryan and Ali met up with us.  We were thrilled to get to see them!  They moved to London 2 years ago, and were on a mission to show us their new city.  The suggested an awesome tea house for breakfast!

This right here?  This is why we are friends :)

Once our bellies were full, we were ready to explore!  

Ali loves the Parliament building, so that was our first stop.  

Westminister Abbey was on my bucket list.  After seeing the broadcast of the royal wedding, I expected it to be massive.  It's actually pretty small inside.  We attended a service.

Gotta love the street musicians adding ambiance to our experience!

I loved this monument!

Checking out the House Guards Parade.

And Trafalgar Square.

We went inside the National Portrait Gallery- totally loved all the free museums!

Victoria and Albert- love it!

Obligatory phone booth pic.

For lunch, we stopped in a centuries old pub that had been a favorite of Charles Dickens when he haunted the streets of London.

Sustenance!!!

They took us downtown to show us Borough Market, which is just under this building- affectionately called "The Shard."

Ali had to show us her favorite cheese shop!

Another bucket list item was seeing a play at the Old Globe.  We got to experience being groundlings!  

Those are our favorites from Day 1!  Many more to come from Day 2.  :)