John, Paul, George, Ringo and Victoria (station)

Got up early and dismantled the clothes-drying line erected in our tiny little hostel room. Clothes were dry and that's all that mattered. A quick hand-wash in the sink was all we needed. We will call it 'semi-fresh' underwear. :)
Headed out this morning (7/22) to find the location of Abbey Road Studios in St. John's Wood neighborhood of London. Stopped by the "Pret A Manger" store (of which there seem to be more here than there are Starbucks in Seattle) and picked up "ready-to-eat" sandwiches for Jake and Kyle to eat on the tube. Got the tube to St. John's Wood (just a stop away from our Hostel) and emerged into the sunshine. Oriented ourself using the sun as our guide and headed out West to find the holy grail of beatles cover-art history. Only West was different than we thought it was, so we were forced to (thank you Kriss) talk to a couple random locals and ask where Abbey Road was. Confirmed with the GPS, we found it a few minutes and a few blocks later.

Each of us signed a piece of the masonry wall in front of the studios as thousands of pilgrims have done before. (see pix). We then queued up to cross the road and photograph ourselves in the style of the record. Us and many others. We witness countless scary moments as cars nearly hit people including one that I missed but Jake, Kyle and Kriss saw which very nearly killed a child of 4 or so whose parents had just had their pictures taken and was just going to run out and catch up to them (in front of moving cars). The intersection is a quite-busy one and the non-stop slew of people trying to walk it and have their pictures taken is a scary combination. We eventually succeeded in getting pix of all of us which we'll stitch together later for the 4-in-a-row necessesary shot we were looking for.

Back to the subway (a much shorter route than on the way here because now we actually KNOW where we're going). Just as we were wrapping up the photo shoot at Abbey Road, it started to rain a bit. By the coffee shop at the tube station where we bought beverages, it was raining pretty hard. That's OK, we were going UNDERGROUND!

We emerged at Westminster Abbey. No more rain there. Got in and looked around for an hour or two at the incredible amount of interned bodies there and memorials to dukes, duchesses, queens, kings, politicians and poets. Amazing. Also Jake and Kyle's very first giant church. And a very old and grandiose one it is. (1066!) It may ruin them for grandiosity in cathedrals. Its like going to Disneyland and following it up later with other theme parks. I don't think they'll ever be able to top it (we'll see how Sacre Coeuer and Notre Dame fare).