London Eye and tour by bus.

Today was a great day up until just a few moments ago. Lauren and I toured the city on top of a double decker bus and saw all of the major monuments of the city. Our tour started at the London Eye and proceeded across Waterloo Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral, London Bridge, London Dungeon, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Shakespeare's Globe, Sherlock Holmes Pub, Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and a slue of other places. We just about saw the entire city of London in two and a half hours time. It was great! We decided to go ahead and do the bus tour so that we would know exactly where we want to visit here in the city of London.

Before all of that, we enjoyed visiting St. Paul's Cathedral for service this morning. The cathedral is absolutely stunning. It sits about a minutes walk from St. Paul's train station and we followed the masses of admirers to the front steps of the church. Although the church is undergoing some construction, the church had Lauren and I awestruck. The church is enormous. The front doors of the church are at least 6 foot wide a piece. I wont even begin to estimate how tall they are. Once you enter the church, you notice that the main body of the cathedral is in the shape of a cross. The entrance face starts from the west side and services are held right at the very intersection of the cross. Unfortunately visitors are not allowed to take pictures once you are inside the church so I will try to describe it to you the best I can. Once you enter the doors of the chapel, vigil candles are available for those who are praying for something in particular. Also, there are monuments on either side of the chapel for people that have dedicated their lives to the church or lost their lives in battle. Each casket has a message written on it with a short story of the individuals life. In the background you can feel the pipes of the organ rattle to your bones before the service begins. After all of the ground level has been soaked in and you find your eyes wondering toward the ceiling, beautiful painting and gold coated flowers stop you in your place. I am glad we were there an hour before the service in order to take in all of St. Paul's Cathedral. To begin the service, the choir walks the middle isle to a hymnal that echos from each corner of the cross and are followed by the deacon, president and the priest. As the choir finds their place on their risers, a young child lifts his angelic voice above the choir around him for his solo part. All through the service in prayer, singing and the sermon, each voice echos through the chapel as if hundreds of people were repeating each word that is said. Even in silence there seemed to be an echo from the song of word spoken before the silence. St. Paul's Cathedral has a reverence beyond any church I have ever been apart of. Anyone who visits London has to attend at least one service at the chapel.

After church we went to Yo! which is a sushi bar directly across the street from the church. Their slogan is, "Not just Sushi." It wasn't just sushi. The entire restaurant is a bar around the center of its' cooks. Each chef prepares a dish on a circular plate that is about 4 inches in diameter. He then places the dish on a conveyor belt that constantly circles the bar. When a dish passes you that you wish to eat, you simply take it off of the conveyor and enjoy it! Each dish is color coded and each color represents the price of the dish. You can have as many dishes as you like and at the end, all your dishes are totaled for your bill. Its almost like a sushi buffet that comes directly to you in your seat!

Today was a fabulous day until just moments ago when the Netherlands lost the world cup with only minutes to go before sudden death. I was at The New Globe pub watching the game with Spain and Netherlands fans. It was an awesome experience even though I was not rooting for Spain. Enjoy it Gilbert, we will be back in 2014!

I hope you have all enjoyed our blog for today. Tomorrow we will be traveling to Oxford for our first day of class. We leave here at 0630. (12:30 am CST) We will be visiting the Mini Cooper plant in Oxford for our first class. I am sure that we will have plenty to write about tomorrow evening. So be sure and check back for an update.

Have a wonderful evening mates!