Our long awaited trip to Europe finally had come...
Some excerpts from my journal:
We flew out on July 3rd I fielded 3 phone calls of Maddie getting out
of the yard. The fireworks were freaking her out and somehow the gate wasn’t
closed all the way. As the plane door was closing David (who was staying at the house) came home and took Maddie from the nice
stranger that had brought her back. Luckily she didn’t run away any more while
we were gone.
We got to London about 3:00 local time. We flew
Virgin-Atlantic and loved it. We got 2 meals, individual entertainment with
lots of free movies, blankets, pillows, headphones and a comfort pack of
earplugs, tooth brush and toothpaste and even socks. Nice flight.
At first our
phone didn’t work in London and the promised car from our hotel was nowhere to be found. Jeff finally got the phone working and called the hotel and they didn't have anything down about a car. We lugged our bags to the underground
or the tube (Subway) and took it into the center of town. We didn’t realize
that it was an express and we ended up paying something like 20 pounds a person
which was crazy. Then we lugged our suitcases up to the street where we ended
up getting a cab the rest of the way to our hotel. We would’ve probably been
better off getting a cab at the beginning, ha ha.
In the end it took 3 hours to get to our hotel, it didn’t help that we were trying to get there in rush hour traffic.
We were staying right on the Thames river in the Dockyards.
There was a ferry that took us to Canary Warf every few minutes. We checked in and explored the warf and ended up eating dinner at a great Italian restaurant. Good food and glad to finally be in London. We even had someone wish us a Happy 4th of July knowing that we were Americans (that was nice). We had no problem getting to sleep that first night since we had been traveling for so long.
Our hotel had a great free breakfast. We skipped the blood
sausage but I did have the eggs with beans and bacon on the side. I never
considered eating pork and beans with eggs! There bacon was more like a round
slice of ham, but when eaten all together it tasted pretty good.
This was our marathon day to see London as much as we could.
We took the Ferry over to Canary Warf and then took the underground to
Westminster and came out at the parliament building and big Ben (which is so
named for the bell in it, not the clock). We were in awe as we were coming up
and seeing it all as we came up to the street level. Amazing!
We walked across the bridge spanning the Thames and went to
the London Eye (formerly called the millennium wheel). I noticed that people
had put locks on parts of the bridge…I would come to find out that is a “thing”
now and I could see other places where people had put locks in random places
when they could.
The
view was great and we could see all over London. The ride was smooth and just
long enough that you weren’t bored. Here is what the capsule looked like. They had to use new technology to engineer the glass to get it curved enough so riders have an unobstructed view.
Our view of the parliament building and Big Ben.
This was Kings Cross Station. Supposedly all of London is measure starting at the cross that is outside of this train station.
One of the newer buildings was "the Shard" I guess it had a good lookout and a restaurant on top. I thought our view was good enough and beside the older buildings are what interested me most.
Us in the eye
And our view down the Thames...
Afterwards we took a Big Bus tour around the city. We
decided to use the Hop-On/ Hop-Off bus to see the rest of London that day. Kind
of a Good idea/bad idea.
Our first stop was Buckingham Palace. It
was surreal to actually be there with all the other tourists that were there
too.
The iconic guards...this is through the gate because apparently no-body was allowed near them.
An interesting statue that we saw on the route.
When
we went back to catch the bus we waited a while…no bus….then we were directed
to walk a few blocks to a hotel and wait for the bus. Then it ended up being
another block down and we caught it.
I
guess there was a strike from the teachers and so part of the city was closed
down. We stayed on the bus until we got back to Westminster and then ditched
the bus (Buses in traffic are not too fun). The good thing was our bus had a
live guide that told us about things but he had a strong accent and you had to
really listen hard to understand him. It was interesting to see the house of
Benedict Arnold where he lived the rest of his days as an American patriot even
as we will always remember him as a traitor. We saw the original Hard Rock Café
that started with a rock star wanting to reserve his table by hanging up his
guitar above it. Other singers did the
same and the first Hard Rock Café was born.
Our bus tickets also got us a one way trip down the Thames
that would take us to the tower of London which was the last must-do thing that
we were going to do that day. The boat tour talked about the modern and
historic buildings that we passed. The poem that talks about the London Bridge
falling down was true. The London Bridge that is there today is like the 4th
one that they’ve had. They’ve all gotten burned down and the last one before
was sinking so they sold it. They said that an American bought it and brought
it to America thinking it was the Tower bridge instead (which supposedly wasn’t
true when I researched it). We’ve seen it in Lake Havasu now we were traveling
under the real London Bridge in London.
This is the iconic Tower Bridge.
The London Bridge wasn't nearly as interesting and was just a flat bridge that spanned the river.
When
we got to the tower of London (which was actually a compound inside of a wall
in my opinion) we realized we only had an hour until it closed and we were
encouraged to do it another time. We didn’t know if we would be able to come
back and we had already bought the tickets so we decided to just do it quick.
We walked in and thought we would do the highlights. We ended up seeing the
crown jewels, the armory and the bloody tower.
We ended up doing a speed walk through and at least got to see the highlights.
. I
was surprised that some of the people we talked to later had never even seen
the crown jewels. The jewels and royal paraphernalia were fabulous, over the
top and excessive in every way. There was a large jewel in one of the crowns
from India and I guess they really want it back…I’m thinking that it won’t
happen.
We weren't allowed to take pictures of the crown jewels but I grabbed a couple of pictures off the internet.
The
bloody tower had claustrophobic, steep stairs that I almost didn’t go up until
I saw my children at the top and realized I wouldn’t have to be on them for too
long. I found out quickly that the buildings, hotel rooms, elevators, stairs
and many other things in Europe are much more cramped and small than I am used
to and I had to work on not feeling claustrophobic more than once on our trip!
There was a sad story of two princes that were heir to the throne that
disappeared one night. One was 12 and one was 10. It is rumored that their
uncle who was eventually crowned King ordered them killed but they were never
found. Years later a workman renovating the tower found a box containing the
skeletons of two boys believed to be the missing princes. Sad.
The armory had all sorts of historical armor for both man and horse.
The most interesting was the armor for King Henry the 8th
which was obviously trying hard to protect his “family jewels”.
One of the other interesting things
about the tower were the ravens that live there. There is a legend that says
there always has to be at least 6 ravens living at the tower or it would fall
and all of England with it. So there is actually a raven master and 9 ravens
(some to spare) that are kept in cages at night and let out during the day.
They are fed raw meat, biscuits soaked in blood and an egg once a week. In the
wild ravens live 10 to 12 years but they had one that lived 45 years named Jim
Crow.
That night Taylor and I explored a park that was across the
street from our hotel. Once we explored past the playground we found that there
were trails that kept going and going. It ended up being a wildlife preserve
made when they filled in sections of the dockyards that used to be used for
transporting lumber. It was great and we even saw a few fairly large foxes that
let us get pretty close to them and seemed to be pretty used to people. The next morning we enjoyed breakfast and then
all went back over to the park for a little bit before it was time to head over
to the train to go to Paris.
Things I noticed in London
· The window boxes full of flowers are more
breathtaking than they are in paintings. I kept wondering how they kept the
flowers looking so good especially the ones that were in such inaccessible
places!
·
Our sign says “Exit” – theirs says “Way Out” and
shows a person running
·
We say “elevator” – they say “lift”, We say
“line” they say “que”,
·
In Europe not many restaurants are truly fast
food but some will say “take away” which means they will have a way for you to
bring the food with you. Take away is a cheaper price rather than sitting at a
table which will usually have an upcharge.
·
When Jeff was in Italy there wasn’t really fast
food chains but now all over Europe we saw plenty of Subways, McDonalds, KFC
and Burger Kings and of course some knock off fast food places.
·
I loved the little gardens that
were everywhere, courtyards and potted plants and topiaries.
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