We walked around Hyde Park a little, but since the weather was nasty we walked around quickly and left.

We walked from Hyde Park to Harrods, which is a huge, high end department store. We picked up some stocking stuffers in Harrods to give to each other on Christmas. Harrods was extremely crowded! Usually the building is lit up, but it wasn't lit up during the time we were there. It had a food hall, escalators with extravagant decorations, such as the Egyptian ones, and many couture brands. We ate lunch at a restaurant close to Harrods.

We took the Tube from Harrods, to the Charles Dickens Museum. The museum was inside of Charles Dickens' house from 1837 to 1839. Since it was Christmas Eve, they had special activities going on in the house. They had volunteers who dressed up as characters from A Christmas Carol, and they performed scenes and songs from the book.

In the museum, there were also crafts that we could participate in. One of them was marbling with dye. I mixed these dyes together in water, and I laid the paper on it. Then when I took the paper off, the pattern transferred to the paper. Also, my parents strung letters on a piece of string to make a saying. They chose "God Bless Us", which is a famous quote from A Christmas Carol. We hung the saying up in our hotel room later.

Next, we rode the Tube to the London Eye. We got there earlier than the time our tickets were for, so we watched the 4D movie, which was provided complimentary to our Eye tickets. 

These are pictures of the view from the London Eye. We had tickets for 5:30, so it was dark outside. Most of the building were lit up by now, so it was a spectacular sight! The ride lasted for about 30 minutes. After we finished going around, we took a cab back to the hotel. The cabs in London have seats in the back that face each other. I sat in the seat where it seems like you are driving backwards. At the hotel, we ate some appetizers at the bar, and then we ate dinner at the hotel restaurant called Bistro 51. I had the chicken tikka masala, which was very yummy. After dinner, we filled everyone's stocking stuffers and went to bed.