Note to all travellers: If it's bright and sunny one day, you should do outdoor activities then. Save the indoor activities for the rainy days.

This morning, we awoke to freezing temps and rain. We decided that free attractions were still a good place to start, so we headed for a tour of the parliment building at 12:00. We arrived early to ensure a place in the tour, and found we were the first of what would be a group of 5. Lynn, our tour guide, was familiar with Hermosa Beach, CA and knows someone who works in El Segundo (crazy). The tour was great, and it was so interesting to see how a smaller 1st world country works. Everything is simplified and most things are open to the public.

Upon exiting to the cold again, we decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy full-on winter coats at a store called Kathmandu. You might notice them in our subsequent pictures. : ) After some great Middle Eastern food we headed to the cable car you see in the picture on this blog post. The car is very cheap and often used by university students for the campus at the top of the hill. We decided to skip the botanical gardens at the top--still rainy. The rest of the afternoon was filled with walking along the shore and stocking up at the supermarket. Dinner was shepard's pie, wine, and chocolate Tim Tam cookies.