Day 2

Yay! I made it. So happy to see Nicole, it's been 4 months since she was home. My flight was delayed two hours so it was very late by the time I landed in London. It was past the time the trains stop running so we had to book a car to take us to Nicole's house. We walked in the door, had a sandwich and crawled into bed- it was 2:00am London time.

We were up bright and early and ready to roll. We started with a walk around Nicole's neighbourhood. It was nice to see where she has been living and working. She had an LTO that was an 8 minute walk from her house. 

All the school in England have fences around the school yard. Nicole had to be buzzed in every morning, there is no grass at all at this school but they did have a lot of neat outdoor play structures. 

After our neighbourhood tour we headed into the city centre. I am actually in shock and awe at how competent Nicole is at getting around. She is extremely confident and has been all over London teaching so knows her way on every underground line. We started off at an outdoor market then headed off to Kensington Palace ( no we didn't see Will & Kate)

We walked for miles, we went through Kensington Gardens, we saw the Peter Pan statue, we made our way to Hyde Park and saw Diana's memorial fountain. There were lots of very interesting things to see.

After the park walk we made our way the Buckingham Palace. Then we were walking down to Picadilly circus and walked into the middle of a humongous pillow fight! It was awesome, there were about a thousand people involved, pillows and feathers were flying everywhere!

We had some dinner and then walked around some more. We walked over 24000 steps today. I try to on average walk 10000 steps so this was a big increase and boy do my legs feel it. It was good practice for what is to come. 

I had a great day today just walking and talking and catching up with Nicole. I have really missed having her around. We alway kept in touch with messages and FaceTime but nothing is the same as face to face contact.

Tonight I got to spend some time with Nicole's roommates. It was great to finally meet the people who I have been hearing about all year. They are also teachers from Canada and the funniest thing is that they are from Kitchener! Imagine moving across the ocean, to a big new city, starting a new job, finding housing through an agency and you end up living with someone from your hometown? What are the odds? They are great girls, very funny and cheerful. It's going to be hard on Nicole when she won't see them everyday. 

Ok time for bed, big plans are in place for tomorrow :)