Thursday, September 20, 2018

European Birthday trip: London

The first leg of our trip was to get from the states to London, England. We had an overnight flight and hit the ground running to see everything we could in the one day we had to spend there!

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Brian slept great on the plane, but at least I got to see the sunrise!

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I didn’t get a good picture of the hotel we stayed at (blame it on jet lag), but here is one I found, which was right downtown in the heart of it all…

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Our first order of business was to find a cup of coffee, and Starbucks was going to have to do! It was definately a different feel walking down the street with all of the authentic taxi cabs, red telephone booths, and magestic buildings everywhere!

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We decided to take a big bus tour to see as much as we could that day, and our first stop was right down the street from our hotel at Westminster Abby…

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St. Paul’s catheral was beautiful!

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Driving over the Tower Bridge felt iconic!

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Unfortunately, “Big Ben” was under quite a bit of construction, but at least we got to see it on our boat ride up the river!

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We stopped for lunch in an authentic London pub, and enjoyed some wonderful fish and chips and meat “pies”… and of course, a good ole London Porter!

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The next stop on the bus took us to Buckingham Palace, where we saw the beautiful building where the Queen spends alot of her time, and the famous guards to the palace.

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After a much needed nap, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner before heading back to bed. We were exhausted, and had a big day of us!

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The next morning, we headed out to the train station for our next journey on the Eurostar to Paris! We made a special stop at Kings Cross station and the Harry Potter store at platform 9 3/4 (from all the Harry Potter books), and picked up few souvineers for the kids!

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Obviously, mom iddn’t get this picture either, but the Eurostar took us from London to Paris in 2 hours, under the English Channel, and went up to 200 mph!

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We scored some first class tickets and had a wonderful lunch while we enjoyed the views of the countryside…

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And just like that, we moved on to Paris!

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Happy birthday Brian!

For Brian's birthday this year, Nannie & Grandpa came for a quick visit and we went out for one of his favorite dinner experiences.....