I awoke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning... we were finally going to do something I had wanted to do since my first trip to London: take a cruise up the Thames! Yaaaaaa!

We showered, dressed and hit the Tube yet again, this time taking the Bakerloo line down to the Embankment station. It was only when we stepped out onto the street that I realized that we hadn't had any breakfast yet, save for a cup of tea and a piece of shortbread in the room. You may remember that I had trouble with the electric teakettle a few days prior to this; I neglected to mention that I eventually figured out that the kettle's plug had to be "jiggled" into the outlet in a particular way for the kettle to come on. Safety first, folks - no bad wiring there!

I suppose that I should also take time out to mention the room safe at this point. You see, as you walked in to our room, the bathroom was to the left and there were a pair of closets to the right. One of the closets was an actual closet (you know, for clothes and all), whilst the other closet contained the tea service, a few drawers, and a safe bolted to the wall. And the safe worked thusly: you put your stuff into the safe and closed the door. You then entered a four-digit code of your choice on the keypad, then pressed the "lock" button. To unlock, you simply entered the same four-digit code again.

I found the safe to be a source of infinite amusement. I felt like James Bond or a member of MI-5 storing away some super-secret files. I kept my electronic gear and money in there most of the time, and had loads of fun entering a code, hearing the chipper little electronic melody and the cool-blue LED displaying "LOCK" when I was leaving the room. Yes, this is a completely useless anecdote, but I thought you might enjoy it.

Anyway, Lisa and I arrived at 10-something at the Embankment station. The street looked promising, so we looked for somewhere to grab a bite:

As luck would have it, the best place we found for breakfast was the place closest to the Tube station. It was just a little sandwich place, but they had actual hot food, too. Lisa got an onion and cheese pasty, while I had a fresh baguette with Cumberland sausages. In case you haven't noticed by now, I like sausages. One thing I have yet to mention in any detail is the total superiority of British potato crisps (chips) over their American cousins. They're awesome! They come in a galaxy of flavors that us Yanks can only dream of. The most popular brand (Walker's) comes in the following flavors:

Barbecue, Beef & Onion, Cheese & Onion, Heinz Tomato Ketchup, Marmite Yeast Extract, Pickled Onion, Prawn Cocktail, Ready Salted, Roast Chicken, Salt & Vinegar, Smoky Bacon, Worcester Sauce

OK, I could probably do without the Marmite-flavored ones (in fact, I could do without Marmite flavored anything)... but still - the rest of them all so yummy! Especially the "Limited Edition" holiday ones I had at this shop... which were "Turkey and Bacon" flavored:

OK, so after eating, we had to walk down the embankment towards Westminster Pier (which is located next to the Houses of Parliament). Here are some pictures from the walk, with comments\captions as necessary:

 In the extreme distance, you can see the soldier standing guard at the Horse Guards Parade.
You can see pictures of Lisa and I standing in front of a similar soldier in the exact same place at the top of this gallery from our first trip.

And so we arrived at Westminster Pier. Instead of a single company offering rides to different destinations from from the pier, we were confronted with several companies, each offering their own prices, schedules and destinations. How confusing! Only one company was offering rides from Westminster to Tower Pier that day, so we queued for tickets, where I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Travelcard holders were allowed a 1/3 discount on the fare... so the £5.78 fare was reduced to £3.81. This is nice, given that the ride is only around a half hour and all.

Anyway, after buying tickets we walked onto the actual pier to wait for the boat. As always on this trip, our timing seemed to be pretty good, as we only had to wait a couple of minutes for the boat. I should have captured the boat docking on video, as the swift current made docking quite difficult... even Lisa commented on  how fast the water was running and the odd angle the captain had to come in on so as to be perfectly level with the pier when done. Dad and Ty would have been impressed, I'm sure!

Miss Lisa did NOT care for the wind that day...

Awwwwwwwwww!

End of Part 1 of Day 5. Click here to go to Part 2 of Day 5!