Day 12: Church at Westminster Abbey!

Today we woke up a little late, since we had such a long day yesterday, but a couple of us managed to put on our "Sunday best" and head out to attend a church service at Westminster Abbey. We first stopped at Tower of London and Tower Bridge because we wanted to take a tour around and see the crown jewels. However, we were unpleastantly surprised when we found out that it cost almost 20 pounds to enter! (which is a little over $30 u.s. dollars!) We also showed up an hour and a half before the tower closed and the woman informed us that we wouldn't have enough time to make our way around the whole place. So we decided to wait and see if we want to do towards the end of our stay (and to make sure we have enough money!) Then we grabbed a bite to eat and wandered into a couple tourist shops before heading over to Westminster Abbey.
Church was quite an experience! They actually had people outside of the church directing people who only wanted to take pictures away because Sundays are for church services only, no tourist visits. So unfortunately I wasn't able to take any pictures inside, but I'll definitely be back to do that and to explore the church a little more, including the special William & Kate exhibit! Speaking of which, I realized during the service that we were attending the church on the one month anniversary of the wedding! I thought it was a pretty cool coincidence that we were at the church exactly one month after. We actually sat right near the alter in which the Royal couple stood at during the service!
I normally don't do this since I'm Lutheran and we don't have this at my church, but I lit a candle in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey in remembrance of my Grandma, Bernadette King Magnus (BKM) who was born on May 31st, 1934 and died on May 26th, 2005 because her birthday was a couple days later and I thought it was a very special and meaningful way of remembering her.
After church, Allison, Ashley, Chrissy and myself walked around a bit, took a couple touristy pictures and actually ran into a group of girls who asked us to take a picture of them in front of Big Ben, which led us to find out that one of the girls goes to Pitt! Talk about a small world!