FINALLY!!! Off we go to see the other side of the world! A dream of mine for years I finally get to experience AND with my sister! We left Orlando and connected in Detroit, from there to London the flight wasn't bad at all, except that we didn't sleep....maybe a little snooze here and there but that's about it. Given the excitement, also the cabin lights on in the plane for the first 3 hrs of the flight and then serving dinner and desert, might all be a reason why we had no sleep. We landed in London at 7:30 am (2:30am home time) and had decided before our trip to take the tube from the airport to our stop where we were staying but that was only short lived. We took the main train into London and then got a taxi to the house we stayed at haha. We had heavy bags and this was a foreshadow at the rest of our traveling days to come. We stayed with the most amazing couple and their place was perfect! So clean and tidy, only a 5 min walk to the tube and not to far from town. Laura and I put all of our stuff down and had two options....brave the city for a full day (it was 8am) or take a nap then go out, needless to say, we braved the city and were up for 27hrs. We decided to just walk some of the local shopping at Camden Market and Covent Gardens. We grabbed a beer at a local pub and watched a magic show some people were putting on outside in the square. The rest of the day we walked around learning the city and taking in the fact that we were actually there in London. That night we had booked tickets for the London Eye so we went home to change and relax a little and headed out to grab dinner and go to the London Eye. The city looked amazing all light up at night and the ride was 30mins so I got to take some good photos from way up at the top. The next few days the weather wasn't to bad, we had on jackets and boots but some of the days we didn't wear jackets because the sun was out and it was actually nice out. We visited Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, ate lunch at Sherlock Holmes pub and headed to see Westminster Abby. Although the Abby was closed that day we did go back and had the full audio tour which took about 2 hours but it was totally worth it, I think for the both of us that was one of our favorite things we did. Everything about the Abby is simply amazing, I love that you can sit and stare and never look at the same thing twice because there's so much detail and so many stories about this place. It has so much history and you walk around and just say wow like 1,000 times to yourself (with your mouth dropped open). We got up early one day and arrived at Buckingham Palace 2hrs prior to the changing of the guards. We had the perfect spot! I sat there to hold our position while Laura found Starbucks and returned with coffee and treats :) This was another favorite of mine, I never knew what was so cool about going and everyone saying that we had to go, but this was really really neat to watch. They do so much in the hour, like yell things at each other and then have a battle of who plays songs better...and they aren't old songs, they would play a Beatles song and Sweet Caroline, haha. Absolutely fabulous and something I think everyone should do also. Another favorite thing was our tickets we booked to go into Buckingham Palace and see the 9 staterooms. The queen is gone for a few weeks a year and they open the Palace for the public. We walked through the room Will & Kate walked in when they officially announced their engagement, we walked right by the steps where they took their wedding photos at, it was un real. We also did an audio tour here and learned a lot about the Royal Family history and ALL the artwork that covers the walls there. The Queen had on display all of her most important jewelry so we got to see the coronation crown and necklace, that famous broche she wears to a lot of events, all the rings, crowns, necklaces and earrings, just everything was so beautiful and we were looking at it, right there, inches away! We also got to eat on the back patio of the Palace, there was a small cafe set up so we dove into some deserts and coffee before walking through the backyard garden of the Palace. That is also something everyone must do, of course only if you go during that time of year. A few other places we saw were the St. Pauls Cathedral, Big Ben, a boat tour and the Princess Diana's memorial fountain. Before leaving London we had to see the famous London Bridge of course along with the London Towers. That London bridge is amazing, all the building of that was done so perfectly and it's way nicer than I thought it would be. The towers took a while to walk though but there was a lot of history there as well. Laura found a room where a prince was killed and you listened to audio of a reenactment of what might of taken place in that room. The murder was never solved. We ventured out a few nights to grab dinner and wine (which was always good), and one of the nights we saw the show Wicked, which was awesome. Laura and I had never seen a show before and we both loved it!
We ended up staying an extra day because of a strike in Belgium where we had to switch trains to head on to Amsterdam, it gave us a day to lounge around and take a much needed nap. On the last night we were there we stayed home and since seeing all the Royal things and being surrounded by it, we decided to watch The Other Boleyn Girl on the couch with a bag of popcorn. The next morning was an early one, 4am. Our train left at 6:50am so we got an early start to dragging our luggage to the tube, riding that into the city, dragging it through the international train station and onto the high speed train with us. Not fun, absolutely not fun. That was the second foreshadowing of how NOT to travel with luggage, and we still hadn't learned. Here's some pictures of our London visit, next stop (and post) Holland (where our dad is from)!!
From top left to bottom right then the middle: The National Gallery, The London Eye, Wellington Arch, Big Ben, Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abby
Please excuse my absence as i've gone MIA for the last month. As you know I was in Europe for 2 weeks wich I can't wait to blog about and then since being home i've been crazy busy helping Darin because now he has 2 shops and I just can't find the time to sit and write with out being utterly exhausted! I am editing some photos right now so I can blog about London, our first stop...and man that was was amazing. I'm going to write about Europe and take the time so I don't miss anything when I post my blog so hopefully tomorrow i'll have something. There's been TONS going on this last month so I probably have blogs to keep me busy for a while!! Thanks for being so patient with me! Check tomorrow for my London post!!
