London

How amazing was London?? So glad that we were able to take this trip.

We got to London on the 13th around 10 or 11 in the morning local time. Thank goodness our first stop in Europe was to an English speaking country. We could hardly get out of the airport, we were so lost. With the help of some left over Olympic helpers, though, we were able to find a train with a stop right next to our hotel. And by right by, I mean more like a half mile walk. In the middle of the day. With all our bags. That was awesome. And don't worry, I knew exactly how to get to the hotel. OK, so we got totally lost wondering the streets of London for over an hour in the heat. But to my credit, I made all the right turns and we were on the right street; we just couldn't find the right place on the street. This resulted in Kim and I walking up and down the street, looking for our place. Keep in mind, we have our bags with us the entire time. We didn't look like tourists at all.

After dropping our bags at the hotel and a nap, we ran to the Eye of London. OK, maybe not ran, but we booked it. On foot. For some reason, we didn't get a tube pass the first day. Big mistake. One way walk to the Eye was 2.5 miles. But man, was it worth it!!!

London Skyline

Big Ben across the River Thames

Looking up into the Eye

Yeah, I'm just a kid at heart

Big Ben at night

Just calling home

The next day, we got up (I wish I could say early) and had a full day. We went and saw Buckingham Palace (not the changing of the guard, just walked around the grounds outside). We walked around Green Park and St. James' Park, where they still had a lot of Olympic banners up. From there we went over to Westminster Chapel and tried to get in, but it wasn't open. We had to walk around the outside and see the parliament and Big Ben. 

After seeing Big Ben, we headed to the Trafalgar Square, since we had tickets that night to see the Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theater. We went to the National Gallery for a few hours and saw THOUSANDS of works of arts (literally thousands - seriously, I'm not exaggerating. Go look yourself if you don't believe me). After the Gallery, we went and saw the play. When we got done, it was really late, but for some reason walked the 2 miles through St. James' Park to our hotel in Pimilico. Don't tell my mom; she would have killed me for walking around in the dark in a foreign country. Gratefully, we didn't have any bags with us.

On our last day, we finally got a tube pass. Mind the gap!! I don't know why we waited so long to get a pass, but we probably walked way too many miles and could have seen a lot more if we had gotten the pass. Maybe next time.

Speaking of seeing a lot more with the pass, that's exactly what we did. We were able to go check out St. Paul's Cathedral (closed - man, I really should check operating times next time, too!), the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, where we ate some proper fish n chips, and of course, we were able to finally watch the changing of the guard. In the rain. What trip to London would be complete without rain and the changing of the guard? Well, we got a two-fer!! Oh! And we got to check out platform 9 3/4 at the King's Cross station. It looked NOTHING like the movie. And no, we didn't look like tourists at all; we fit right in!

By the time that we left London on the 15th, the voice in my head as I read my book (Harry Potter) was in an English accent.