London, day 2

Hi all!

Just a quick note again today as I only have 45 minutes to nap, change and hit the road again to The Globe Theater for Merchant of Venice tonight. We are 'groundlings' in the audience. Google it...

What a day we've had. The kids literally passed out by 9:30pm last night. We did room check at 9:15pm and Amar, Alex, and David had all passed out (different rooms) with the lights on...we had to get their room key from the front desk to see if they were there! Almost all had a great nights sleep, but most woke up around 4 or 5am. Mr. Daren took a group for a power walk at 7:30am (Deej, Amar, Josh, Scott) and I took a group for a great 45 minutes power walk/jog at 8am (Nina, Shilpa, Lauren - she wants her parents to know that yes she ran! - Kriti, Julia, Cailin - he was careful). I treated them to a Starbucks (I know, starbucks!!) afterwards Then at 10am we left and just got back at 6pm - walking the ENTIRE day! It was perfect weather, warm and breezy, and we first walked to the Tower of London for the tours - walking across the bridge that folks think of as London Bridge, and then caught the tube to the park at Buckingham Palace where we grabbed lunch at the market. Afterwards, 9 kids went with Mr. Vallerga shopping and to the prison museum, and the rest went to the palace which is only open 2 months a year. WOW. What an awesome tour of a working palace! We all had the audio tour which was fascinating. So although we were beat, we were glad we did the tour. Mr. Vallerga, however, is still out shopping with his kids!!

Everybody did great staying together on the tube, and walking and they are having a great time together. I don't think I told you but last night we took a walk over the 'mile' bridge (beautiful, modern) and to St. Peter's Cathedral. It was about 8pm, sunset, cool and breezy and it was so much fun. Everybody was feeling better after getting their dinner at the dorm and we all loved skipping across the bridge and laying on the grass by the church. We ended the night with ice cream, of course.

We are off to Edinburgh at the forsaken hour of 5am tomorrow, then on a coach tour, and at the dorm at 4pm where we will stay for the night - no going out, just unpacking and chilling. I HOPE, but can't promise, to post the pictures on our blog tomorrow.

Cheers!
Laura