*I came to London my sophomore year of high school with the marching band to do a New Year's Parade and got to see a bunch of sights, just at a very fast pace. I remember that trip being one of the first trips I've ever been on where I sincerely did not want to leave at the end -- and it was a 10 day trip! I absolutely love London and could probably go there over and over again without ever losing the butterflies in my stomach/amazement feeling.
We left around 9 a.m. this morning and took the "slow" train that made multiple stops on the way to London, making the trip there last around 2 and a half hours. After arriving, we ate lunch at Burger King in the train station--I know...of all the places to eat in London we chose Burger King! But we ate there mostly for my family since they always appreciate a little taste of America--and then we walked several blocks into the city to catch a bus for the tour. Our tour was through a company called Big Bus Tours, and basically it has several buses running the same route and they stop at the major landmarks (such as Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Tower Bridge, etc.) so you can ride straight through the route or you can get on and off whenever you want to take pictures and visit the shops or museums. If you ride it all the way through without getting off, I think it takes 2 to 3 hours, mostly because of traffic. We had a little trouble figuring out how to catch the right bus at the right time and even got on the wrong bus at one point. They had two of the tour buses stopping at the same point in the route, but they took you different directions so we accidentally got on one that took us around the east side of the route twice, adding an hour of things we'd already seen to our tour. It was frustrating to some degree, but honestly kind of nice at that point because we'd already stopped at Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, and taken a river cruise down the Thames so we got to at least sit down for a breath and just take it all in. I am an absolute city girl at heart and I loved just looking at the architecture around London, seeing the old and the new. When we were coming back through the east route the second time, I actually saw the Twinings Tea Shop and was able to take a picture, which I hadn't done the first time, so that made me very happy :) After riding the east route twice, we were able to get off at Buckingham Palace and take some pictures, but there was some sort of garden party going on for the Queen in preparation for the Diamond Jubilee so we didn't really get to go as close as we hoped. All in all, though, it was a very enjoyable day seeing all the sights of London!
I think one of my favorite parts of the day was the river cruise on the Thames. We got off tour bus at the Tower Bridge stop, went down to the docks, stopped for some Starbucks along the way--just in time for the half off frappucino happy hour!--and rode a boat that was included in our tour. The captain of the boat gave us commentary for the different buildings and landmarks up and down the Thames and although he warned us that he wouldn't know as much as a tour guide, I was extremely impressed with his knowledge of the city and additional humorous stories.
We ate dinner at the train station at a place called Nando's. A missionary that stayed with my parents earlier this year, Tiffany, lives and works in London so she joined us. I enjoyed hearing about the kind of work she's doing and what life is like for her in London. I may even be able to go back and stay with her for a few days sometime later this summer (fingers crossed!) so it was nice to get to meet her and learn a little bit about what she does. The dinner itself was delicious! There were 7 of us -- my parents, me, Trey, my grandparents, and Tiffany -- so we all split a family platter of chicken and several sides. I was really tired and hungry at this point so it may have tasted better to me than it actually was, but I thought the chicken tasted incredible and the soft drinks had free refills so that was a definite plus :) Usually the drinks here are small and refills are not free, so that was a nice treat.
We rode the "fast" train coming back, which only made one or two stops and traveled at a much faster speed than the one we rode this morning, making that ride only an hour and a half. We are definitely exhausted, but had a wonderful day!
I took about 150 pictures today so I'll be going through them and putting them up on Facebook soon :)
Grace and Peace.
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