London/Paris Day 3

The adventure starts here.

On the 3rd day, we had breakfast in London and then headed to St. Pancras to ride the Chunnel to Paris. (and yes, I called it St. Pancreas a few times. haha)

Heading to Paris! Think they'll let us in?! 

Paris is beautiful! Open sides cafes on every corner... literally! 

Our very french hotel, Victor Hugo. 

Our french doors opened up so this view below. 

Headed out on our first night in Paris to eat dinner at a cafe and then to walk to the Eiffel Tower. 

I am so proud of myself for taking this photo with my iphone! haha

We sat in the lawn staring at this view, drinking wine out of plastic cups! It was so surreal! 

~~ to be continued....

London Day 2

As mentioned in "London Day 1", we passed out at 7:30pm on our first night. Well, we both woke up at the same time and just knew we had slept through the night and it had to be after 5am the next morning. ......     Um...no. It was only 11:30pm. Jet lag at its finest.  We watched a documentary and a movie before passing back out around 3am. Housekeeping woke us up at 10am. And we were finally out the door at noon on our 2nd day!

We took the river taxi down Thames to the London Eye. 

From here, we jumped on a Big Bus and started our tour! I want to take a moment to highly recommend the Big Bus tours! They are the way to go! We saw so much in the short time we were here. We did the same thing in Paris (you will see in the next few posts). You get to hear the history of everything you are seeing. Plus you can jump off and get on another one, so you can use it as a type of taxi service, too. 

Here are photos from the sights we saw on the Big Bus London. 

One of the things I loved about London was all the old buildings and beautiful architecture. What was so cool was the juxtaposition of those beside new, modern structures! 

We hopped off and took some photos in front of Buckingham Palace. 

We finished our tour by getting off at Piccadilly Circus. I absolutely love the hustle and bustle of this city. Harrison took me out to eat at on a rooftop downtown. I had THE BEST lava cake I have ever had there! I can't believe I didn't take a picture of it! 

~~ to be continued. 

London Day 1

It has been just a few weeks since returning from London and Paris, but it feels like a lifetime ago. We had such a whirlwind trip that I get sad with every passing day as the memories are not as clear and crisp as they were a couple of weeks ago. Thank goodness my girlfriend is coming up this weekend so we can work on our travel journals. (She just returned from Norway). I need to get these memories, stories, laughs, feelings, smells all on paper before they become too fuzzy. Luckily, someone every day has asked about my trip. So much happened that I actually tell different stories to each person that asks; always remembering something else .... and then hurrying to put that memory down in my iPhone notes before I forget.

There are so many wonderful photos that I don't want to narrow them down anymore than I already have. Therefore, I am going to break up the trip into multiple posts. I hope you enjoy!

We spent the first 2 nights in London. I flew into Manchester and we took the bullet train into London. I really loved London way more than I thought I was going to. I truly love the hustle and bustle of this beautiful city!

The first day walking around, I said to Harrison, "This looks like some Harry Potter sh$t". He looked it up on his phone and said "That's because it is!". (yes, I am a Harry Potter fan). Leadenhall Market (below) was right across from our Hotel. It served as Diagon Alley in some of the HP movies! 

When we got to London, we pretty much beelined it to The Tower of London. It was mid afternoon and I had been up for 28ish hours at this point.

side note: I needed to have slept on the plane over because that would have put me waking up when we were landing in Manchester at 8am. However, with nerves, excitement... I did not sleep... at all. In fact, it was not a good flight for me. I was so fidgety, getting claustrophobic, couldn't watch a movie in its entirety. It was not good. 

However, I was energized and feeling fine (at the moment), so off to Tower of London we go! 

Wow, oh wow! The Crown Jewels... holy smokes! Amazing!! 

This is the chapel in the Tower of London. Underneath the alter is where Anne Boleyn is buried. 

Below is the place where she was beheaded. 

The Shard

We got dinner at a pub around 6:30pm. At this point, I had been up for 31 hours. And this is the point where my equilibrium reflected the lack of sleep. Everything started spinning and Harrison said I looked like I was about to pass out. So, off to our hotel we go. We were both passed out by 7:30 on a Friday night, our first night in Europe. haha

~~ to be continued...