The night was better, but still not great. I was wide awake at 3:30 am, then went bak to sleep at around 6 and almost couldnt get up at 9. Everyone else seemed to be doing better than me, though. I think the girls are already over their jet lag.

We went straight to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard, and only barely made it in time. I struck up a conversation with a local who explained a bit what was happening.  The crowds were huge, because it turned out that Obama was there and people were hoping to catch a glimpse of him. We stuck around for a while and then headed first down the mall, then cutting across a park to get to the river.  We went to Westminster Abbey, which I really wanted everyone to see, and me to see again, but it closed early for some reason, so we sat in the grass beneath the giant stone walls and ate lunch.

We then wandered over to the House of Parliament building, where crowds were again forming because Obama was going to arrive there. So we stuck around to see if we could catch a glimpse. Kaitlin and I walked back to a little secluded cloister area among some old ruins there, and sat on a bench and talked, and rejoined the others waiting with the crowd. Eventually Obama did show up.  The crowd was too thick and I didn’t get to see him, but Phyllis managed to get a picture of him.

From there we made our way up to see Big Ben by day this time, and then headed back to the room to plan our next fews days of travel.  Everyone else wanted to stay in the room, so I went back out in the evening for some fish and chips and then scoped out the way to the train station for tomorrow.