England Pilgrimage Day Two

So the next morning - we were to meet for breakfast at 8:30am - so I set the travel alarm for 7am (or so I thought). Luckily at one point in the morning, Kris looked at the clock on the TV and it was 8:21am! Nine minutes before we were supposed to be downstairs for breakfast - my alarm clock never went off! Apparently, if you want the alarm to go off in the morning - you need to set it to AM - who knew?!

It was Sunday, so we were off to church. We worshiped at Wesley’s Chapel - built in 1778 by John Wesley. After church, we had the opportunity to see where John Wesley lived, his grave in back of the church and a museum that had a pulpit he preached in that we could take pictures in. He was a short man, so most of us had to kneel in the pulpit to keep from hitting our heads on the ceiling! As we made our way to Aldersgate Street - we walked through the cemetery where Wesley’s mother is buried. We walked down Aldersgate Street and saw the plaque that commemorates the meeting place where John Wesley’s ‘heart was strangely warmed’ which marked the beginning of the Methodist movement in earnest.

We then hopped on the Tube to Leicester square and walked through Trafalgar Square where they were having a music festival since it was a three day weekend. As we wandered down to Westminster Abbey, we saw the Horse Guards and 10 Downing St. When we reached Westminster Abbey, we had yummy soft service ice cream with a chocolate ‘flake’ in it. We stayed for an organ concert and evening service. I found it fascinating that Charles Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey!

Most of the group walked back to the hotel - a small group of us took the Tube and then stopped in the Bag O Nails pub for a pint. I enjoyed a pint of apple cider - and since I was drinking on an empty stomach, I was pretty happy at dinner - had a nice buzz going on. After dinner Craig took all our camera’s and downloaded the pictures and started blogging about the trip for the folks back home. Thus endeth the first of many religious days of the pilgrimage... click here for pictures of our second day.

And stay tuned for Day Three in the series - a day where Kris, Jan and I wore our uniforms...