Arrival in London - 8/3

We've arrived in London! Without our luggage...
Our connecting flight in Charlotte was delayed and our baggage didn't make it to our next airplane. At first, this seemed like it was going to be a problem, but then we found out that the airline actually delivers your luggage to the place where you are staying. And as the day went on, trying to find our way around the city to the place we are staying, it was actually really great that we didn't have our luggage to haul around with us. It's big and heavy!

Our first step after arrival was to find a way to get to Leslie's friend's dorm where we are staying. Her friend is a student at Boston and is out here doing an internship for the summer.
We ended up taking a taxi - driver on the right, car on the left side of the road - and dropped our bags off in her friend Diana's room. Then we went and got lunch at a pub/restaurant around the corner and it was expensive, but good.

After lunch we wanted to see the city and planned to walk the Millenium Mile, which begins near London Tower and ends at Westminister, but we only made it as far as Hyde Park on foot. (We were trying to avoid getting a $13 pass on the underground, which is the London city metro).

We got to Hyde park and thought that it would be a perfect place to sleep, since Leslie only slept a couple of hours on the plane and I didn't sleep at all.
I saw Central Park in NYC last summer, but that pales in comparison to Hyde Park. There were HUGE trees everywhere and the grass was so green! There were groups of people scattered throughout the lawns, reading or talking or just relaxing. Some were seated in lawn chair provided by the park (which actually cost 2 pounds (4 USD) to sit in, we found out after a couple of minutes of sitting in them - so we got up). On one end there were areas designated for sports, and groups of people were playing baseball and soccer over there.
Then there was a lake/river with canoes and pedal boats. Leslie and I rented a pedal boat for half an hour - it was great! The weather yesterday was perfect, sunny, not humid, with a cool breeze. So we took our pedal boat out into the middle and just floated there for 20 minutes while a solar-powered boat passed us, taking people on rides down the river.
Then we slept in the grass for awhile. Sleep has never felt so good.
We also stopped at Kensington Palace on our way back to the dorms from Hyde Park and that was pretty incredible.
We met Diana, who we are staying with, and she cooked us dinner - which was really great considering the money we had spent during the day and the fact that we were both basically dead tired.
And then we went to sleep. For more than 10 hours. It was great.

Today, we are planning to take a hop on, hop off bus tour through London. They give some history about the city as you go, and I think we also get a free boat ride on the Thames River.
We'll see!