A Day in London

Today we took the train to London and did a bus tour around the city to see the sights. I have been to London before* but enjoyed seeing the extra decorations for the Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee...and just seeing the city again in general! :)

*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.

Rookie Mistake

My mom's parents got here on Saturday and will be here for the next 2 weeks, so this week we are doing a few day trips to some different places, including a day in London tomorrow, and we are spending half of next week in Rome. Today, we decided to take advantage of the warm, sunny weather and drive an hour to Nottingham to see Nottingham Castle and some of the places where Robin Hood has been. Pretty exciting, right? Well, unfortunately the castle grounds and a few of the other places we wanted to go are closed on Mondays. Of course the opening hours was the detail we overlooked when planning this day trip...rookie mistake. By the time we went around to the places we wanted to see, we didn't have enough time to go to the places that were actually open because we had to get back home to pick Trey up from school. So...overall, it was an enjoyable day spent walking around downtown Nottingham* in the nice weather, we just weren't able to go inside the castle and museums. We were at least able to take pictures from the outside of the castle and museums, which I'll share on Facebook once we go to a few more places.

*Nottingham is surprisingly more developed than I thought it would be. I pictured a small, quiet town similar to the ones we've previously visited, such as Shrewsbury, but this was a well-developed city, just a few points shy of being to the caliber of Birmingham in my opinion. (Birmingham UK, that is).

Lesson learned: when planning a day trip, check the days and hours the places are open. and make sure you have ample time to go everywhere you want to go.

Currently reading: ...well, I'm still on the exact same spot in Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet as I was in my last post. I know...pitiful. my only excuse is that I've had a pretty rough cold for the past few days so I really haven't felt like reading much. Thankfully, I woke up feeling much better this morning so hopefully I've finally gotten rid of the cold.

looking forward to sharing about our trip to London tomorrow!

Grace and Peace.

Expect the Unexpected

If there is one thing I've learned from traveling, it's to always expect the unexpected.

For example: flight times.
It seems I'm the only one in the family who has this problem. The first time to England I came by myself at Christmas, I didn't have any problems. We left on time, arrived on time (if not a little early), and everything was fine. When my family has flown to and from England, they don't have problems (knock on wood). But when I came with Justin for spring break, we had 2 gate changes and 3 plane changes, pushing our departure time from 8:45 pm to 1 am. lovely. The streak continued when I got on the plane to come this time, got all settled in my seat, was watching an episode of Big Bang Theory on the TV monitor, and was thinking "I'm almost home!"...and then the pilot interrupted this thought 30 minutes into the flight by announcing that they discovered some problems with the plane's air system that absolutely had to be fixed in order to make the trip across the Atlantic Ocean, meaning we were going BACK to Atlanta. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been in the mindset of "almost home" and if we weren't already up in the air, but of course...expect the unexpected. I am definitely thankful that we came back because first of all, they had another, well-working plane immediately ready for us and second, because the air system problems included not being able to de-ice the plane, which basically means we could've had serious problems over the ocean. no big deal. God was watching out for us and keeping us safe, and for that I am grateful. Plus, I still made it here in one piece so the extra 5 hours really didn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.

Another example: weather.
I have been mentally preparing myself for weeks for England weather. Gloomy. Rainy. Cold. Wintry. And then I get here and it's 70 degrees and sunny. ...wait, what? expect the unexpected. I enjoyed a walk with Mom and Dad yesterday after we got back to the house and am typing this while sitting in the conservatory (basically a sun room), enjoying the warmth of the sun coming through the windows. God is so good.

It feels strange to think that I'm finally here for long enough to adjust to the time difference and not worry about turning around and flying back at the end of the week. Two and a half months to spend in complete relaxation with my family, with some adventures along the way = pure joy.

Since most of the summer will include days where I have to entertain myself in the house, I'll add a note at the bottom of my posts about the book(s) I'm currently reading, and I have a rather long reading list that I hope to go through so we'll see how that goes.

Currently reading: Sherlock Holmes - A Study in Scarlet. I have two volumes of the complete novels and stories of Sherlock Holmes, and the first volume is well over a thousand pages, so I'm planning to finish the first story, A Study in Scarlet, and then maybe read some other books before coming back to read some more of Sherlock. So far, I am loving this story. It's definitely a classic that I would recommend for mystery lovers and English nerds, like myself.

I'll continue to post about my adventures, as little as a day spent at home reading or taking a walk to as big as a day spent touring Rome.

Grace and Peace.