WEDNESDAY:
Loaded down with girlscout cookies and high hopes my dad and I set off from Amarillo this morning.
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Who would ever want to leave such a
beautiful place behind? |
My dad and I arrived in London during the wee hours of the morning... well, 6:30am. But still, after being on a plane for 9 hours, its early! And we were greeted by beautiful snow! Planning ahead, we decided to rent a car to see Stonehenge. Little did we know it would take the entire day to make the 3 hour round trip to the henge of stones!
It was a long day. And from this long day my dad and I gleaned some valuable lessons.
1) When in doubt. Go left.
Driving on the left side of the road is the worst kind of punishment ever thought of by man. My dad successfully ran into the curb 3 times that made a distinct loud THUD noise. I can't count the number of times he just drove in the middle of two lanes. He also almost ran us into a wall and managed to hit another car. YES. we had a little hit and run incident today. I was taking this picture with the window rolled down.
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| We are just a couple of delinquents. |
See that black car? Our mirror hit its mirror. I ended up screaming at the loud noise it made right as that pedestrian walked by. It was such a great moment. No worries, there was no damage, so I might've over exaggerated the "hit and run" part.
Every time we turned onto a new road I had to yell, "Left, left... LEFTLEFTLEFTLEFT!!!" Because, obviously, he defaulted to the right lane. We came face to face with some head on traffic once or twice!
I also drove for a few minutes. It gave me a better appreciation of how difficult it is to stay in the middle of the lane. My dad found a new appreciation for how scary riding the curb can be as well.
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Shifting gears with your left hand is more
difficult than you think! |
B) Avebury is not the same as Amesbury.
My dad put the town AVEbury into the GPS this morning on our way to Stonehenge. After and hour and a half of driving I looked up the directions on his phone that he downloaded on the internet and realized Stonehenge is located near AMESbury. Someone forgot to wear his glasses today (which might be the reason his driving was so terrifying). Once this mishap was corrected in the GPS we were another hour from Stonehenge. Somewhere between Avebury and Amesbury in the middle of the English country side we found ourselves lost.
Did I mention it snowed the previous day?
The country side was absolutely stunning.
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Miles of fresh, untouched snow blanketed
the rolling hills |
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| Beautiful winding roads |
We had no complaints getting lost. Although, we did fear for our lives when we drove up a hill with a little bit more snow than our rental car could handle. I thought we would be stranded in the middle of nowhere in England. Can you imagine?
But do not fret! We finally found Stonehenge and it was absolutely amazing! The snow was beautiful and there was no one else there. We basically had the freezing cold, wind stricken place to ourselves! Aren't we lucky?
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| Dad and I at Stonehenge |
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| Panorama shot of Stonehenge |
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| Me. Stonehenge. |
4) One does not just take a Taxi from Heathrow Airport to Lewisham.
After our rental car was returned we were bussed back to the airport where we took a taxi to Lewisham (where our B&B is located). The hour cab ride turned into a two and a half hour cab ride.
Now at this point you may be asking yourself, "self... why didn't they take the train?"
Easier said than done. In between the two of us we have 7 bags (4 suitcases and 1 backpack and 2 day bags). I think I might've over packed.
So we rode in a what seemed like endless taxi ride. But, somehow we made it to the Manna House and were received by friendly faces and warm tea.
If you are still with me at this point, kudos to you! This awfully long, but beautifully cold day deserved nothing less than a painfully long post!
THURSDAY:
Wow. What a long day. I slept for 3 hours last night, no thanks to my dad's snoring.
We woke up early. Had a wonderful breakfast at the B&B and then hopped a train to central London.
Today was a day filled with much wiser choices made on our part.
- National Museum: Got there right as it opened. Had the place to ourselves the first 45 minutes we were there.
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I love museums. Today I saw Monet, Rembrandt, Rafael,
Michelangelo, and many others! |
- Took a cliche telephone booth picture. An obvious must do.
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| Cliche telephone booth picture. FTW. |
- Self Guided Walking Tour: Including, but not limited to, Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, and The London Eye
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| Big Ben |
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| Westminister Abbey |
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| View from the top of the London Eye |
- Ate waffles for lunch. Yes. Waffles.
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Belgian waffle with ice cream and
strawberries. Yes. |
- Walked to Buckingham Palace: Detoured through St. James' Park. Saw random dudes marching (not at the palace).
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| Random Dude's Marching |
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| St. James' Park |
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| St. James' Park |
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| Buckingham Palace |
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| Buckingham Palace |
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| Buckingham Palace |
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| Buckingham Palace |
- Toured Churchill's Underground War Rooms and Museum.
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There were no Buckingham Palace guards
to take a picture with. So I took a picture
with him. (Hes not real) |
- Ate fish and chips, and Shepard's pie for supper. And tea! I absolutely love this tea thing the English have going on, they got it figured out!
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| Fish and Chips. Classic. |
- Finally, took a picture my dad wanted to take all day, and hopped the train back to Lewisham. We also bought my dad a scarf. It was a big, life changing decision!
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| The London Eye at our fingertips. |
It was another cold day in London! Filled with so much site seeing! We walked everywhere and froze our faces off! Hope the legs can recover for tomorrow. I'm not used to all this walking yet!
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Big Ben. Buckingham Palace.
Westminister Abbey. London Eye. |
FRIDAY:
I am writing this post from the London City Airport! YAY WIFI!!! Today was awesome! And crazy!
Sadly, I woke with sore legs this morning. It is extremely pitiful, I know, but we did A TON of walking yesterday, and a ton more today!
We headed to Greenwich to the Royal Observatory, where we stood in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
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| Me. Standing on the Prime Meridian! |
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| Dad. Standing over the Prime Meridian. |
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| Prime Meridian |
On our way back to the B&B to get ALL of our luggage we bought a new suitcase. (I know, we already have plenty, but my main big one broke in Houston on the way out of the States... It didn't make it very far.) Then we rode the tubes and train back to Lewisham. We had exactly 5 minutes to frantically unpack the old and repack the new suitcase. We were already out of our room from this morning so we did all this in the breakfast room. Lynne, the wife that runs the Manna House, had a great laugh at our hurriedness, and at the fact we bought ANOTHER suitcase.
Here is proof of our great burden.
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| bags on bags on bags |
And with that, we are sitting at the airport waiting for our flight to Frankfurt, and finally... Rome!
So, I say Cheers London! We had quite a jolly time!
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