A very long day!

We traveled to London starting on Friday afternoon (Phoenix time) which was about 2-3am London time. Our friend, Linda, took us to the airport. We turned our checked luggage in, and had our boarding passes. We headed to the gate, and got there about 90 minutes before boarding time. About 40 minutes before boarding time, we got text messages on our phones that our flight had changed to a new gate -- but the gate agent assured us it was not the case. A few minutes later, the gate agent said, yes, the gate had changed -- we were at the very end of one concourse, and we had to go back to the center and all the way out to the end of the next concourse. Oh well, it is good to get some walking in before we get on a long flight. We got to the new gate, had barely gotten seated in the waiting area, and a customer service representative got on the microphone at the new gate to tell us that we were moving back to the first gate! We continued our exercise routine with another walk! The airplane was still at the second gate, but eventually they got it moved over to the first gate and eventually we got on.

On the flight -- we were in "Main Cabin Extra" which was supposed to give us slightly more leg room, which I guess it did. We also had the whole row of 3 seats (the aisle seat didn't have an assigned passenger). Regardless, we didn't get much sleep on the overnight flight.

Our flight path

I would think that the people in England would be terrified that an airplane the size of 1/2 the country was about to land!

After landing, we easily made it through immigration (it was all automated - put your passport on a device, look into a camera, get the green light and go through the gate). Then we picked up our luggage and headed out through customs. A customs/immigration officer stopped the guy in front of us, but we made it through with no problem. We then made our way to the train station...

I had decided to take the Elizabeth line train into London from Heathrow Airport. The Heathrow Express train came first, but the Elizabeth Line train came soon after (it would get us closer to our hotel without having to change trains).

On the Elizabeth Line train (with all our luggage)

We got off at Liverpool Street -- we followed signs to eventually get up to street level...

... where we found the taxi ranks to get a black cab to take us to our hotel. All our luggage stacked up in the large passenger compartment with us.

Selfie in a London black cab

View out the roof of the black cab

The taxi driver got us directly to our hotel for our stay in London, Hampton by Hilton Old Street.

Art on the walls includes a framed Shirley Bassey LP  (25th Anniversary Album - including Goldfinger - Carl is impressed)

We decided to visit a pub, The Eagle, around the corner from our hotel for lunch/dinner...

... inside The Eagle...

.... one of the items on Carl's "list of things to do in London" was to have fish and chips (which he had). I got salmon. The green thing on Carl's plate is mashed peas. All parts of our meals were very delicious!

We headed back to our hotel for a few minutes, and then left to walk to St Paul's Cathedral for evensong. It was about a 1.5 mile walk, but we figured we could use the exercise!

Along our walk - a building along the way...

... a coffee shop...

... a defibrillator along the street...

... a view of St Paul's as we got closer!

We arrived in time to join the Evensong service. They asked that no photos or videos be taken during the service (we complied, some of the others in the congregation with us did not). We had read that it was okay to take pictures after the end of the organ voluntary at the end of the service...

Looking up toward the altar -- the choir sat on the sideways facing benches inside the chancel. The choir for this service was Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Looking up at the inner dome -- 225 feet tall

Looking west, toward the doors in the back

There were two crosses in the nave of the church with something that looked like buildings on them (the picture is of one of them)...

I looked up information on what they are to depict and found (https://news.artnet.com/art-world/gerry-judahs-world-war-one-memorial-at-st-pauls-cathedral-is-haunting-and-beautiful-9997):

Two sculptures by Gerry Judah commemorating World War I have been installed in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, reports the BBC. The twin crosses by the artist, each 20 feet tall, dramatically flank the nave of the church.

Judah has linked the 100-year-old war to modern-day conflict by carefully embellishing each cross with tiny models of today’s war-torn cities and towns, recalling the ongoing struggle in places such as Afghanistan and Syria. 

When we left the church, a group of folks in similar teeshirts and carrying drums were lining up outside...

Carl got a picture of the west side (main entrance) of the cathedral.

Statue of Queen Anne outside St Paul's

As the clock finished chiming the 6 o'clock hour...

... a group of the drummers started playing (video here).

A food truck in the plaza outside St Paul's

We decided to walk back to our hotel. We took a different route (we like going different paths, but this was because we didn't quite understand the directions and may have gotten a little lost erh, creative in our path-taking...).

Along the way, we came across a remnant of the Roman Wall that had been built around London. From what I read, it was built around AD200!

Nearby was the ruined 14th-century church tower of Elsyng Spital - "...founded by merchant William Elsyng in 1330 to care for homeless blind people, it was damaged by the Great Fire, the Blitz, and now sits amid modern skyscrapers."

We continued on our walk back to our hotel, finding a Subway sandwich shop where we got sandwiches to eat back at our room. One thing interesting was that they had kernel corn as an optional topping on the subs... we tried it, but didn't find that it added much to the taste.

We finally got to bed about 9pm London time - after a very small amount of sleep on the airplane and quite a bit of walking -- we were exhausted!