We had trekked all the way to our tiny apartment the night before and did a little exploring but not too much. So we ventured out for our normal must haves in a new city: food and transport. Transport was really easy and it was nice to be in a country that actually speaks English! Food was a bit more of a challenge because we were in a less residential area this time and although there were plenty of restaurants I hadn't really noticed an actual grocery store. We finally found one and for the same price as our lunch we were able to be food the rest of the week, breakfasts and dinners. London is expensive! Not only is the dollar weaker but things in general cost more, I felt like worse then places we had been before. For this reason we tried to do research to assure that we only ate good food for such a high price. We decided on a Italian restaurant that was highly rated near us for lunch, it was delicious! Since we got all that taken care of along with some general exploring of the area we decided to check one of our must-dos off the list. We bought our tickets to the London Eye online and picked them up on location, when we got there the line to get on was an hour and a half. We paid to upgrade to the "fast track" and were on the eye in under 10 min. It was nice and very picturesque, I've never been on a Ferris wheel of such this scale. Glad we decided to do it at night because you could see the whole town lit up. Afterwards we walked around the area a while and found some cool things to when they were open.
For the next two days I had booked a hop on/hop off bus tour. After a wonderful breakfast at home and wondering a while to figure out where to meet the bus we were finally off. We decided to ride the whole route and then decide if we wanted to get off and do something specific. With such a wonderful plan something had to go wrong and after having to get off the bus twice for potty breaks and starvation breaks we finally made it the whole way around the city. Of course a complication of winter travel is shortened hours and we experienced this in full force, all the museums closed around 4pm. We wanted to head up to the British museum but were unsure about the distance and closing time so decided instead to do a river cruise that late afternoon. After getting off the bus for another potty break we walked across the bridge to the docking area. We got on the 4pm boat and it was dark already, I would never get used to it getting dark at 3:45 in the afternoon! It was cold and windy but we enjoyed an evening cruise on the river. Afterwards we were feeling a little abused by the weather of the day and decided to retreat to our apartment. It was a wonderful quick walk from the pier to our apartment, it summed up our day nicely.
The following day had a little more of a plan and an earlier start but the weather wasn't interested in cooperating. In the winter months the changing of the guards only takes place on alternating days and 'will not take place in extremely wet weather'. The folks at Buckingham palace and I have different definitions of 'extremely wet weather' as it was lightly raining on and off, yes it was cold and windy but you'd think they'd be used to that. So after we realized that the changing of the guards was not going to happen, which is signaled by a man coming outside a gate and raising his hand out and shaking his head no. We decided to hop on our bus and take advantage of our free second day of the tour. I had pre-purchased tickets to the Tower of London and Shakespeare's globe that needed to be used that day so we had a little more of a plan. We stopped at the Tower of London and luckily it seemed the weather might have kept some people away as it didn't look nearly as busy as the day before. We got inside and waited a while to take the the 'tour' that turned out to be useless information that only lasted about 20 min. We then got in line to see the crown jewels, it was interesting to see the story of them and how much history is built into all the ceremony. The jewels were amazing to see and 100% more grand then I could have imagined. We wondered the grounds a while and it was starting to rain harder and the place was getting really crowded so we decided to retreat. Luckily the rain slowed down after we got out of the subway and we headed to Shakespeare's globe. My hubby really surprised me on this trip, he's such an amazing partner in general but this was the longest continuous vacation we've had plus it was with a toddler! He helped me out so much with her and indulged me in the silly things I wanted to do like walk across a specific bridge even if it means walking a little out of the way in the rain. So that's exactly what we did, I wanted to walk across the millennium bridge, also known as the 'wibbity-wobbly bridge' because when it first opened it wasn't structurally sound and it swayed excessively, they had to close it within the day for repairs. Shakespeare's globe was just on the opposite side and was an interesting stop. It is a replica of the original Globe theater that was in the area in which many of Shakespeare's plays were preformed for the first time. They put on plays under the open roofed theater but their season doesn't start until mid-January. They have a museum and a pretty well done tour that takes you around the theater and takes about the history, it was a delight for the theater nerd in me. At the end we got to watch some of the actor's practicing battle techniques which was, of course, maddy's favorite part of the day. Afterwards it was cold and dark and rainy we wondered around a while and after more walking then we would have preferred we made it the metro and headed back to our apartment.
As the week had gone by the streets were getting more and more filled with people, signs and traffic barricades. All of a sudden it was New Year's Eve, it creeped up on us! We already had our evening cruise plans ready so we had the whole day free. I wanted to walk down the Big Ben and Westminster Abbey to take some photos and appreciate the buildings up close. I'm such a sucker for beautiful churches. On our walk there we stop at the Horse guards and watch them do their changing of the guards. It was interesting to watch and slightly terrifying as they just walk through the crowds, i think they'd run people over if necessary. Maddy enjoyed the mini changing of the guards ceremony and loved talking pictures with the guard. Well the rain was bad we wondered into the museum there and the gift shop. We collect an ornament from every place we visit and have a travel tree at Christmas to remember all the awesome places we've been. We found a super cute guard ornament for London and when we left we wondered to Westminster Abbey. It is SO beautiful from the outside with all the wonderful lines and statues that are all around the building plus the grandness of it up close is breath-taking. I was tempted to go inside but the line was long and it was expensive, plus the inside of churches rarely have the same effect on me as the outside does so we skipped it. Next we ventured over the Parliament and walked around the building and around Big Ben, another breathtaking sight close up. We walked across the bridge and the rain was getting bad so we decided to hail a cab to take us to our choosen lunch spot. I really wanted fish and chips that were good and with research found the best rated place around. After the cab driver couldn't find it we walked awhile and found it closed. Unable to do any research on the spot we headed to a nearby place that was open, it was awful. It was getting mid afternoon and the sun was setting so we decided to head to our apartment for a family nap and food to assure we could enjoy the fireworks that evening. We left our house a couple hours early because I had heard stories of how awful it was to go out on NYE in London. It really wasn't bad we arrived to our pier over an hour early and headed to Starbucks to escape the bad weather for a bit. We headed back out and boarded our boat and headed for a short cruise, we were pleasantly surprised that they didn't overpack the boats and there was space to move around. We got a tour of the area and had a great viewing spot for the fireworks although we were a little further out then I would have liked. They were still beautiful and I wouldn't trade the chaos of waiting on the embankment for hours to get a better spot. We thought we were home free when we hopped off the subway and headed to our apartment, only to find our street gets turned into a one-way street in the opposite direction we need to go. All of a sudden we were in the largest crowd I have ever been in! Wall-to-wall people filled four lane road and we were hurded like cattle for over an hour before finally breaking into the square. We took a wrong turn and got rather lost, luckily you couldn't turn around without seeing atleast 2 officiers and we found our way. We got back to our street and got the pity vote thanks to maddy being there and got to cut the line and head to our apartment. Once we escape the crowd and get inside our apartment I realize that I've locked the key inside the apartment. Nervous that we are going to spend the first night of 2014 sleeping in a hallway I'm pleasantly surprised when the owner shows up in a couple minutes to unlock it! Thank goodness!! We collapse into bed.
My favorite part of the new years is always the parades, I like it more than the fireworks normally. I got us grandstand seats to London's New Year's Day parade and was sure such a big city must put on an amazing parade. It wasn't what I thought, it was much smaller and had much more of a hometown feel. We enjoyed the parade but it was much different then we imagined. Afterwards we took the time to explore the area we hadn't been in before. We walked around Picadilly circus and the nearby carnival then found M&M world right when the rain got bad. We decided to try for a round two with traditional fish and chips, it was yet another fail! We finished our afternoon wondering around checking out the area and shopping. Headed back to our apartment and enjoyed a lazy day.
Our last full day in London we did a tour of Windsor/Stonehenge/Bath. It was a long, rushed day but we saw a lot. We spent the morning in Windsor castle after our walk around the castle with our guide we explored the state apartments alone. It was interesting to see but difficult with a 3 yr old who doesn't quite appreciate those type of things yet! Next we journeyed to Stonehenge, our tour guide was super specific about times and only gave us an hour and 15 minutes to do Stonehenge. It wasn't enough time at all. They've changed how you visit and you know take a shuttle bus to the sight and back, they are working on a museum there to collecting pieces of Stonehenge related history from around the world. He suggested we get on the shuttle go see the sight and come back and explore the museum, as if! We did exactly that and by the time we got back to the museum area we had 3 minutes to get back to the bus. It was a shame we didn't have more time there. We will have to go back without a tour to really explore. Stonehenge was amazing to see but I would have appreciated more context. We headed to lunch in Lacocok after that, it's the home of Harry Potter. That doesn't mean much to me but it did to some people on our bus. We had a traditional fish and chip meal in a local pub, it was the best one we had but still wasn't awe-inspiring. Plus it was nearly 4pm and I was way past that point of appreciating food of any type, we had a small breakfast around 7am. We had 45 min for lunch which was more than enough and I kinda wished we would have used 15 of those minutes at Stonehenge. After lunch, we were off to Bath, which is a town with quite a bit of history and was the part of the trip I was most excited about. To my dismay the majority of the town was poorly lit and difficulty to see in the dark. When we finally reached the square which has a beautiful Abbey we were told we only had 30 min to visit! We snapped a few pictures of the Abbey, went into a few local shops and then headed to the bus pickup spot. Somehow the bus was 30 min late picking us up so we stood there in the cold wasting time we could have been exploring, it was frustrating. I think we will go back ourselves and explore Bath without all the hustle of a tour, it wasn't for us. We got back into town around 9pm and grabbed some dinner and headed to the apartment.
Trey had to head to Houston for some work for a week so he left early in the morning. Maddy and I didn't have to leave for the airport until 4 pm so we had the day to explore. I had planned to take her to the museum of science but she really wanted to go to the park and the weather was nice so we headed that way. We explored the park a while, rode the carousel and people watched. It was all good until the London weather turned on us and it randomly started hailing! Luckily we escaped into a nearby restaurant just in time for lunch and missed most of the hail. After some more indoor adventuring we headed for the airport and the long flight back to Saudi. It was such a relief to open our front door at home and even better to crash into bed!
