London Day 4 - Eggstatic

A late start this morning, as my sister slept in (not surprised) and we headed out a bit after 9am to go to Buckingham Palace.  We were dressed up in our nice dresses and shoes because we had High Tea at the Ritz at 1330.  However, since we had hours to kill, we thought we should do some sightseeing first.  Changing of the guard was at 11am, and we turned up at 10am.  According to my sister's GPS, it would take us 12 minutes to walk to Parliament, so we decided to go do that.

She took a detour, and I asked her where we were going.  And in a few minutes some gorgeous buildings came into view.  "What's that?" I asked, excitedly.  "Westminster Abbey," she grinned.

And just around the corner from Westminster Abbey?  Big Ben and Parliament :)  So that was exciting and touristy!

Then we did some shopping on New and Old Bond street.  We walked into all the fancy stores - Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Tiffany&Co, Georg Jensen, Cartier... and I walked out with a whole heap of impulse buys.  Louis Vuitton purses, Prada shoes...

Time for High Tea at the Ritz!  Dress code was dressy - nice shoes and clothes for girls, and coat and tie for boys.

So this is what we were having to eat for High Tea.

The scones are not on the table yet, they wanted to bring them out after sandwiches were done.

Mmmm, sweets!

OMG more sweets!

High tea took a while, and by the time we were done, it was almost 3pm.  I said to my sister we should go to the Transport Museum, since we could wipe that off in an hour.  So off we went to Covent Garden... and...

ALL THE EGGS WERE AT COVENT GARDEN!!!  My sister and I went nuts taking pictures of all the eggs there.  Here are some of my favourites... but you can look at the rest here.

Aren't they gorgeous?  I realised the time, and I headed into the transport museum to look at all the old trains and trams and cars.

We rushed around collecting stamps and then headed back outside to do some more shopping.  We were really drawn by the Egg shop at Covent Garden (where the Egg Hospital was as well).  Not only were there some awesome eggs in the shop, but the shop also had limited edition miniatures of the big eggs (done by the artists themselves) on display.  I decided that the ULTIMATE souvenir would be one those eggs, and I chose the Alpha Egg by Joanne Holbrook.

I thought this egg was the perfect souvenir because

1. The Egg Hunt was special to my visit in London
2. I was really excited about the eggs
3. This egg is all about London, and displays icons of sights I saw and was excited about eg. Gherkin, Big Ben

Then I wanted to buy one for my sister so we could both have an egg as a memory of my trip here and something we both enjoyed, but we couldn't decide which other egg... UNTIL the people manning the store (one of whom was the sister-in-law of Joanne Holbrook) said they had a second one downstairs!  So I walked out of there with 2 miniatures of the Alpha Egg!  Ms Holbrook has a blog all about the Alpha Egg and the mini Alphas and written a post about the creation of the mini eggs and their fates.  I was so thrilled with the purchase!  And OMG the original Alpha was up to 5k quid bid!

So we made our way home, carefully cradling our purchase, wondering how I was going to get these 2 babies safely home.