London calling...

Anja and I will never again complain about the weather in London. We left a rainy Belgium on Thursday morning, but when the Channel Tunnel spat us out onto the British isles, we were met with nothing but blue skies, cotton ball clouds, and plenty of sunshine. We spent the first hour in London talking about how hot it was and that we were way overdressed. It turned out to be a lucky day. We were able to sit in on a session of the House of Commons, something we both hadn't done before. The line was short and entrance was free. Then we strolled in the direction of Trafalgar Square and happened to see the changing of the Guard, which is a beautiful ceremony even if you've already seen it many times. With Whitehall and a bright blue sky as a backdrop, the horses looked shiny and the costumes very traditionally British.
We made our way via Leicester square onto the tube to Covent Garden to find a place for lunch. We almost had our foot in the door at Belgo, a Belgian restaurant in the area, but luckily had a change of heart and walked around the corner to find a vegetarian restaurant called "Food for Thought". Anja needed a little convincing because she thought we'd only be served some cubes of tofu, but we both had a great lunch and were very happy with our healthy choice. Animals loves us now :-)
We then started thinking about some real shopping and proceeded to our beloved Oxford Street, starting our walk at the Marble Arch tube station. Of course we had to make an obligatory stop at the Selfridge's Food Hall, the Mark's & Spencers gift shop and Debenham's (where we received a complimentary make up session, and fled the scene without buying anything).
Anja then tried to convince me to buy a necklace for my newly acquired party dress, which I didn't want, and I ended up leaving my credit card at the store because all of us were just chatting about the necklace instead of paying attention to important things such as credit cards...Luckily I found out my card was missing when we were just a few stores further down on Oxford Street, rather than on the Eurostar train stuck in the tunnel.
We also managed to refresh ourselves with some free perfume and a nice free sample of Molton Brown hand cream before heading back to Waterloo station to go back home tired, but sad to leave London. We're thinking of making this a yearly girls out, so the British Pound better starts a sharp decline...