Our Life in 3 by 5: London, England-Stinson Style (Part 1)

Hello beautiful people! Did you miss me? I took the last week off from the blog to actually go out and live Our Life! And last week, we were living it up in cheery ole England-London to be precise! It was such a fun trip--the perfect mix of getting out and going and relaxation. In my opinion, you can't ask for much more from a vacation!

We started our travels early Sunday morning by heading to the Frankfurt airport for our way-too-early for my taste flight. Of course, us being us, we managed to get a little lost, but we figured it out in time to make it the recommended two hours before our flight. (Who really does that?!). Once we made it to the airport, we went straight to our gate. Traveling with the kids provided one perk. We got to skip "the line" through security. I'm quite certain the family line was longer than the regular line. Plus, little J and I had the pleasure of an early morning frisk. After all was said and done, we had a little time to rest before we boarded. All three kids did fantastic on the flight, and it wasn't long before we had touched down, albeit a little roughly, at Heathrow. Since it was only about nine in the morning we took the train into Ealing, where our hotel was, and dropped our bags. Then we did some walking around looking for lunch and exploring the area around our hotel. When it was time to check in, we all ended up taking a well deserved nap.

After nap, we took the tube in to the center of London to do some site seeing. We took the stop at Victoria station which is very near to Buckingham Palace. So naturally, that's where we headed. Coming from the States, where the White House is locked down so tight and there are snipers positioned on the roof, it was interesting to me that you could walk right up to the front gates of the Palace. So we did! We walked around the palace a bit, then strolled through St. James's Park towards Admirality Arch and Trafalgar Square. It wasn't crowded on the streets, which was surprising given how popular these touristy places are. We even managed to continue our McDonalds world tour, dining on Whitehall, just down from St. James's Palace. Day one always seems like everything is so spread out and it's such a long walk to get from one thing to the next (especially when your go-to shoes decided to be a bust), but in reality -and knowing what I do now- we were so close to all we wanted to see most of the time. After dinner, we went back to the hotel to rest for our bus tour the next day.

I know I've said it before, but let me say it again. I love the big bus tours! If you have a chance to take one, do it! It's so worth it in my opinion. Especially those with the live guides. We learn so much from them that we would probably otherwise never know. We had a few different guides throughout the two day tour, and learned something different from each one. For instance, did you know the phrase "one for the road" originated in London? During the 1500 and 1600's when the Tyburn Tree was seeing a lot of traffic (hangings), those who were to be hanged rode in carriages down Tyburn Road (now the busy Oxford Street). Onlookers, feeling some compassion, would slip them a drink-usually alcoholic in nature-through the bars on the carriage, giving them "one for Tyburn road" or...one for the road. Pretty cool, right? Not the hanging part, just the origination of the saying. So we learned a lot of cool things like that-things I never knew I didn't know. Well, on our bus tour we did get to see all the top sights, experienced authentic English weather (rainy and chilly), and we got to see the Queen's car and motorcade roll past. Her Majesty was busy entertaining the Irish president at Windsor Castle, so she wasn't at Buckingham, but for whatever reason her car was driving around. Maybe getting a wash and wax? Day one of our bus tour ticket was spent mostly riding around for hours picking up tidbits of knowledge from the bus tour operators. We called it an early night just about every night of our trip.

Tuesday we started our bus tour at Buckingham again, and rode until we got to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster. We did our photo ops in front of Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben to us nonLondoners). Then, since it was a pretty clear day and our tickets included all boat tours and walking tours, we decided to take the boat to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. Our plan was to actually go in The Tower of London, but the boat kind of took forever and we had a very important walking tour to get back to on the other side of the city. So, we bussed our tails back across the city for a two hour walking tour. Totally worth it, though! (More on that in a later post, though)

After our tour, we had to get on another bus to try and get to Kings Cross Station, but that bus sort of never came. At least not in the 35 minutes we stood waiting for it. The only negative I have about the whole tour experience! Since we were in a part of town we hadn't walked around yet, we decided to see what was going on. We managed to stumble upon the cute little Covent Garden Market and a Shake Shack! I know what you're probably thinking...why is she not talking about traditional British food that they ate? Oh, because we didn't. We knew going into this trip that it wasn't something that we were overly keen on trying, so we didn't break our necks (or the bank) trying to get to a pub to eat fish and chips or bangers and mash. London is expensive! Even Mcdonalds cost us about £25!! (Go ahead...google the conversion. I'll wait.) See? Expensive! At some point, you kind of stop thinking in terms of the dollar, or you'll cry every time you pay for something. That's what happened with us and the Euro in Germany, too.

Well, London was a five day trip, and it seems like the summary posts may just take that long as well! So, for now I'll leave you with some pictures from the trip(In no particular order-taken throughout the week)and we'll pick this up soon.