London Day 1

I took a direct flight from Dallas that left at 6pm Wednesday night and arrived at Heathrow at 9am Thursday. After going through customs, I took the tube/underground to the hotel. While I was taking the tube to the hotel, Aaron was taking a train from Leicester to London. He has been in England working, but took Thursday and Friday off so we could do some sightseeing. I got to the hotel first (about noon) and Aaron came about 5 minutes later. Pretty good timing. While checking in, we found out that Aaron has earned some sort of high status so we got upgraded and had access to the executive lounge, which meant we got free snacks, breakfast, desserts, drinks, etc. A perk from all his travels.

The first thing we did was to get pick up our London Pass for our big sightseeing day for Friday. The place was right next to the National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery. We went in the portrait one thinking it was just the National Gallery. I took this picture on my phone because I was going to text it to my brother, Robert, who likes to sport some ridiculous mustaches so I thought he would like it. Turns out, Saturday, I lost (or it was stolen) my camera which meant ALL the pictures on my camera were gone. Such a bummer. The good thing is that I took a couple pictures on my phone and so did Aaron so we have some pictures, but not much. Oh well.

We then walked around and saw the London Eye. For all you Amazing Race fans...do you remember them going on here?

We also went to 10 Downing Street. This is our White House. The PM works here. We also went to Big Ben and the House of Parliament. I think Aaron has some pictures of that on his phone, but I took my pictures of that on the camera so someone else is enjoying those pictures. Did you know Big Ben is right next to Parliament? I always thought they were separate, but they are.

After eating some food, we went to the London Eye. It was fantastic. The views are great. Here is Big Ben right next to Parliament.

I didn't realize how many bridges there are over the Thames River. They each have stories that are interesting too.

A better picture of Big Ben and Parliament. Aaron and I thought that London is a great place. Some cities that we visit are just not great, but we are fans of London. I love how they mix old buildings with new. They preserve things well there and it was really neat to be in a place with such history. The accents were also super fun to listen too...even though it was hard to understand some words. I think their accents make them also sound more polite and proper. But I do think they are more polite and super nice. BUT so many people smoke and it is nasty. They say it is better now, but I still wasn't a fan. Also, they don't believe in air conditioning. Granted they don't have many months when it is really air conditioning weather, but we were there during the time that they needed it. It was much cooler then Dallas though, but at least in Dallas we use our AC. Their public transportation is great and easy to figure out. "Mind the gap" is what they say every time getting off the tube. The street signs are not labeled well at all. Our other observation is people, overall, are thinner, but not many people are fit...no big muscles here.

We also went to Buckingham Palace. I think Aaron has some pictures on his phone, but you can see it in this picture. The Queen is gone in Scotland so you can actually go inside for a tour during the summer, but we didn't. There is a great park next to Buckingham called St. James Park which is beautiful and they had some fantastic pelicans.I got some great pictures on my camera of the park and the animals, but you will just have to imagine them.

This is what the pods look like. They can fit about 25 people, but I think we had about 14 people in ours. It moves slow so you can't really notice that you are moving. The Shard is now the highest structure in London, but we thought the London Eye would be much more fun and we are happy with going on the Eye. It was pricey, but a really neat experience.

We then headed back to the hotel. I was soooo tired. We talked to the kids to make sure grandma and grandpa were surviving. This is the view from our hotel room. We were right on the wharf. It is in the financial district.