London - 51°31' 00" N, 00° 10' 24' W

A delightful surprise - Kate's Oyster card had £7.80 on it!

It's been a while since either of us have been to London - as Kate's Oyster Card will attest!  We had a couple of very important engagements there.  The first was Kate's appointment at the Swedish Embassy and the second was catching up with Brynn Murphy!

As you may know, the Schengen Area is the group of twenty-nine countries that have abolished border controls at their mutual borders.  Very handy for mobility, but the catch is that holders of non-EU passports are limited to 90-days in a rolling 180-day period within the zone.  This includes the Azores and the Canaries which are jump-off points to crossing the Atlantic Ocean. 

With our plan to spend the summer in Norway and Sweden then sail through the Kiel Canal, along the European coast and down to the Azores, we have a major issue with the 90-day limit ... for Kate.  Sean, with his golden Irish passport, can remain in Schengen , Ireland or the UK for as long as he fancies.  He could even get a job if the finances are looking shaky. So, how do we deal with the problem child?

After a great deal of research and chatting to friends who have done it (thanks Fi and Adrian!), Kate is applying for a Swedish Temporary Residency Permit which will allow her up to six months in Schengen on top of the 90-days. One of the requirements is the trip must predominately be to visit Sweden.  Well, that's easy, we'll just sail on the Swedish side of the Baltic!  So Kate was able to secure an appointment with the Swedish Embassy for her visa on our way through London.

We met Brynn in Canary Wharf
- it was still being built when we both lived in London a year or two back!

Our second important engagement was to catch up with Brynn Murphy. Brynn is the daughter of Seán Murphy with whom Sean worked back in the early 1990s.  We had a delightful catch-up and are always thrilled when the kids want to hang out with the oldies.  We hope to see Brynn, her boyfriend Edmund, and sister Kathryn aboard one day!

We took in a few of the classic local sights before jumping aboard the Eurostar and heading to Strasbourg.

A wander through Hyde Park.  You can just see three horses with riders coming down the track.  Apparently, that still is a regular thing here. 
It's likely not on the Top 10 Cheapest Things To Do in London.

Popped over to Buckingham Palace to say hi to Charlie
(but he didn't come out when we rang the buzzer)

Listened to Big Ben (yep, the bell on the clock on the tower)

While we were in the parliament area, we stopped into a lesser-known public building - the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court of the UK.  Free admission to a fascinating exhibition

As well as beautiful galleries and court rooms, it has a fascinating display of human rights-related cases that it has heard and passed judgement on.  It gave history on how the court came to be and why it is an important check and balance in the governing framework of both the UK and the Commonwealth, as decisions passed are often sited as precedent-setting in Canada and Australia.  

Interior of Courtroom One

An interesting tidbit of information is that the UK Supreme Court, in its current configuration, is only TEN years old.

Houses of Parliament.  We can't get Chinook up the river this far so we can't dock against that wall.

Smell you later, London!  We are off to Dusseldorf!

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