First, the drunken entry:

Holy crap, I'm drunk! Didn't realize it until I started moving around a lot after Laura went back to her room. We drank in a pub & then, in my room & took pictures of us & Mr. Happy. She had blue vodka & I had 1 1/2 pints of cider. Woah! Tipsy!

Earlier we went to St. Paul's Cathedral & whispered on the wall. Sounded like ghosts. (Woah! Blurry vision while writing!) It rocked. Then we climbed the stairs to the top even though we were both afraid. Heights phobias. We are badasses. My boots are badass, too. And Laura can now open non twist bottles w/ her teeth. She's badass MacGyver! We rock. Beautiful view. Lit candles. 1073 steps. Madame Tussauds had strobe lights & long lines so we left & got meat pastries & saw a weird play & got drunk. The End. Love, Meg

And now, to expand on that...

St. Paul's Cathedral is breathtaking. I love the sculptures. I love the catacombs underneath. And the view from the top is amazing. First, we stopped in the whispering gallery. We didn't understand how to do it at first, so someone else explained it to us. We put the sides of our heads against the wall and whispered into the curve of the dome. And we could hear each other! At one point, I stepped away to move farther and heard a whisper say, "Meg can you hear me?" It sounded like a ghost, and freaked me out! I jumped, then laughed, then walked farther away so we could keep whispering on the wall. It was the coolest thing ever, even though it sounded a lot like a Verizon commercial. "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?"

It was simply amazing!

We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside, so we climbed a million stairs to take pictures outside. Okay, not a million, but it was well over a thousand. The staircases are so narrow, that there are ascending paths and descending. So on the way up to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral, there are 540 steps, and there are 543 on the way down. 1083 steps!!! Crazy!

We thought we were at the top when we were at the Stone Gallery. Then I saw a sign that said "Golden Gallery" with an arrow pointing up. I composed myself and took deep breaths before we started climbing. Then I was ready to go. Once we reached the top, we both confessed our heights phobias to each other. But the view was amazing! At the Stone Gallery, a woman had offered to take a picture of Laura and I, and I thought it was so sweet, I couldn't help passing on the same offer to a couple I saw at the Golden Gallery. I took their picture and they thanked me. Then I took a bunch of pictures of the incredible view before we made our way back down. It was unbelievable!

We saw the catacombs and the stained glass and just felt awed by it all, especially the beautiful spiritual energy running through the entire place. It was amazing! And hundreds of years old. I loved it there.

We left, to visit Madame Tussauds. I almost didn't want to spoil that spiritual feeling with the craziness of the wax museum, where one part has you being chased by serial killers. But we went for it, anyway, finally found it, and got in this insanely long line. We thought we were through a big portion of it until we were inside and saw it extend so much further in front of us!! Then we saw a sign that said the serial killer chasing section involved moving platforms and strobe lights. I told Laura, "I can't do strobe lights. They make me feel really sick. And I won't be able to open my eyes around them. I can't go in there."

Laura and I looked at the line, and since the serial killer part sounded the most fun and we knew we could no longer do that, we decided to just bail instead.

We bought some more of the amazing meat pastries we'd had at the London Dungeon. Damn those things are good! Then we went to the hotel, got dressed for the theater and headed out to the play. We got out at this one tube station and walked the rest of the way to the theater. In order to get there, we walked along the bridge that took us over the Thames River. It was such a nice walk! Along the path outside the theater, there were old fashioned street lamps changing colors from white to blue. It was so beautiful! As we all walked together, Harvey told us that the entire area used to be the slums of London. It had all been wrecked during WWII, and then became a really gross, dirty area of London, where homeless people and drug dealers spent their time. Then things were torn down and newer buildings were put up in an effort to make it a nice area of the city once more. Well, it looks like that plan is working, because it all looked quite beautiful, clean, and peaceful.

Once we were inside the theater, we had some time to spare. We looked through the theater bookshop, then sat down in the lobby to listen to live music being played by an Italian chamber group. There was a violin player, a cellist, and an accordian player. I loved their music!! Laura and I sat and listened a while before heading into the theater.

The play was called A Play Without Words, which pretty much describes it right there. I fell asleep through most of it. Laura stayed awake and said I didn't miss much. What I saw of it, I didn't really like. It wasn't very interesting. Definitely weird. Oh, well.

Laura and I went to a pub afterwards, expecting to meet up with the rest of the group. Apparently, they went elsewhere, so Laura and I just sat and drank by ourselves a while before heading back to my room. There, we had the same problem of non-twist bottles as the night before. And this time, the front desk said they don't bring bottle openers to peoples' rooms. I didn't say anything about the other lady, for fear of getting someone in trouble. So Laura had her vodka in bottles, and no bottle opener. She started working on one of her bottles with her teeth. At first she loosened the cap enough to get alcohol, and that was good enough for a while. But then she kept working on it, and soon discovered she is a human bottle opener! I could not believe it! She looked so funny getting those caps off with her teeth. I'm surprised she didn't break any, honestly. But it was super cool! She opened some more of her bottles, and we both got pretty drunk. We also discovered that Mr. Happy is an excellent drinking companion. His laughter makes us giggle, especially when we're inebriated! We had a lot of fun! And then I wrote my little entry in my book and went to bed. The End!