London, here I come!

Thursday, September 2 we departed the manor for our first adventure of many....London!! Although I have traveled to a wide variety of places, London hasn't been one of them surprisingly. I saved the easiest for last...the country where they speak English and it's very similar to America. Even with this being true, I was still a little nervous to navigate around the big city. I was very pleased to know my roommate, Andrea, lived in London all summer and is a pro, especially on the Tube (which is their subway system). A little thing that everyone knows about that's visited here is that you take the tube everywhere and when you get on it always says, "Please, mind the gap" Haha. Friday morning we started the day off strong after a good nights rest. We were to meet a school group at the Tower of London that morning. Giving ourselves plenty of time to take the tube, and to grab some delicious starbucks we arrived right on time thanks to our navigator. Although the Tower of London was not what I envisioned at all, it was still really cool. It is not, as the title suggests, a tower! It's actually a large building where people live currently, where prisoners were once held, and where Henry VIII had many people executed. Stephanie was very excited for this part of the excursion. We toured the Bloody Tower as well as my favorite, the rooms where the Crown Jewels are held. They were so extravagant, and it wasn't just one, there were rooms full of gold, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, pearls. It was incredible. No photos were allowed unfortunately. They told the story of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation and showed the video and then had her coronation gown on display- super fancy, I think it would look smashing on me!

London sits on the River Thames with many bridges going over one of which is the Tower Bridge. Here is a picture of me with it in the background. We got really lucky with the weather, it didn't rain on us once! I was so glad because it wouldn't have been the same experience had it rained the whole time. Our next stop was Oxford street, we were in much need of some shoes! At the very beginning of our morning we were just leaving starbucks and saw a red telephone booth so naturally we need a picture in it! And that's when Shelby's bad shoe luck began...her flip flop broke! We tried to fix it with a bobby pin and tape but nothing would work - so she limped around the tower of london until she was able to buy some ever-so-glamorous TUBE FLOPS! (don't google this to see what she bought...we came up with the name) They were cheap plastic flip flops with the Tube map on the bottom! Needless to say, Shelby was on a hunt for some shoes to wear! After Oxford Street we ventured to our next destination, Parliament, Big Ben, The London Eye, and Westminster Abbey. This section of town is like a one stop shop. All of the big sites of London are situated in a one mile radius of one another. We made our way up the stairs from the tube and there he was, Big Ben! The Parliament building is gorgeous as well! We sat for about an hour on the edge of the River Thames just soaking up the sun and the sights. When Big Ben struck 5pm we were off to Westminster Abbey. A great way to see, enjoy, and hear the beauty of Westminster Abbey is to attend the Evensong Service. It's free and you get to hear the organ and choir! Following the service we headed back to the hotel to get ready for a fun night out, afterall, at midnight it would be Stephanie's 20th birthday!

Saturday, we woke up early to make it to the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Now all that it's worked up to be....a huge crowd of people and I couldn't see anything. I heard the band playing but that's about it. That poor queen has to deal with all those people every morning! Sounds pretty miserable to me. I can just live in my nice castle in the English countryside all incognito. I love it! Following this unsuccessful event we made our way to Leicester Square to purchase our show tickets for the evening..we decided on Chicago (kind of ironic as we were not in the US), nevertheless, we were very excited. We took a quick pit stop at Piccadilly circus, the small, London version of Times Square. Next on our agenda was Portobello Market- it took FOREVER to get there! The darn tube had areas closed and it messed us all up. But we finally got there and were able to enjoy the adorable little area with the Portobello Market. I loved the street it was on, it was lined with rainbow colored townhouses and vendors selling items such as jewelry, clothes, antiques, etc. We even visited a yummy cupcake store called Hummingbird Bakery. For this evening, for Stephanie's birthday we had dinner reservations at the Tate Modern Restaurant which is across Millenium Bridge from St. Paul's Cathedral looking over the River. We were on the top floor seated by the window with an awesome view. And we got steak! It was so good. I think Stephanie had a wonderful birthday dinner complete with candles to blow out atop her chocolate cake!

That night was complete with seeing Chicago! It was awesome. The theater was a lot smaller than in NYC but it was still really good. It was a fun girls night out!

Sunday we departed London for Hampton Court Palace about an hour outside of London. Henry VII and William and Mary and all sorts of royalty lived there. My favorite part was one room that was decorated with guns and knives on the walls. It looked like just patterns, but if you looked closer you could tell it was actually these weapons making up the art. In addition, I loved the gardens. We had a fun little photo shoot out there! That completed our first weekend away. It was a great start to our semester. Next stop, Edinburgh, which Shelby, Stephanie and I have planned on our own.

More to come,

Keep reading!

Cheers,

Aunt Kate