First Day to London

Off to London!!

So Thursday morning, we got ready and walked up to the bus stop at Morrison's (3/4 mile) to catch the X1 bus to Kettering train station. We got on this bus at 9:30 and arrived at 9:48, barely enough time for us to print our tickets and get to the platform for the 9:59 departure. (some nail biting involved)

Now, an aside to all of this expedition is that, on Tuesday night, Abigail well and truly sprained her ankle running around outside. Wednesday, we took it easy, giving her lots of ibuprofen, and putting on ice packs. Anyway, we couldn't really cancel the trip because Bill had purchased the train tickets online Tuesday (bigger discounts purchasing early), as well as tickets for the London Eye (very expensive) and we were not about to waste that money. So he had to piggyback her up to the bus stop, and around the train station.

We boarded the train - it was PACKED!! We had to walk around a few coaches before we finally figured out our reserved seats were in coach C. Of course when we got there, other people had sat down in them, so we had to nicely ask them to move. For the most part, they did with apologies, except for one older woman who then began a politely toned diatribe on "the old days" not being like that (having reserved seats purchased ahead of time and making people move out of them). Someone gave up their seat for her, but she of course couldn't get past the "old days". Anyway, it is no easy task to travel with 3 little ones, so no one should begrudge us reserving seats. In fact, it seems as though a lot of smart people reserve seats, and folks would do well to do so.

Arriving in London, we got off at St. Pancras, the train stop for all the East Midlands trains, and got on the Tube for a ride to Waterloo station - near the London Eye. Upon reaching there, we stopped in at Burger King for lunch. I can't believe it - here I am in London and where am I eating????? Ah, what we do for our kids!!

We then walked out to the London Eye and took a truly spectacular ride around this wheel to view London. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day - we could see for miles. Abby is pictured above with Buckingham palace above and slightly to the left of her head, and there is also a shot of Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey (with slight glare from the glass).

After the London Eye, we sprawled out on the grass of the nearby park for some soft-serve ice cream cones. We then strolled down the riverside walk, looking at all the street performers, many of which were living statues of one kind or another. Then it was over the Hungerford Bridge to the West bank sights. (us pictured on the bridge)

A few blockes later, we arrived at Trafalgar Square. There was a huge festival going on there, with a giant TV screen showing the Olympics behind the column. We decided against going in the National Gallery - lots of famous paintings in there - for time's sake.

About this time, some rain started, clouds rolling in. Until then it had been beautifully sunny and warm. Out came our handy rain jackets and umbrella as we headed down Whitehall.

You can see here the clouds as we approached Big Ben and parliament. The passes to get into Parliament were all out for the day, so we headed across the street to go in Westminster Abbey. This was quite an incredible thing - amazing ceilings, tons of marble on all these tombs - medieval painted tiles, incredible thing after incredible thing. I did not see the no photography sign posted, so this picture was taken before the lady came over and stopped me.

We spent a couple hours in there and walking around the grounds of this very amazing structure. The kids were fascinated by the many tombs - the marble likenesses posed just so on top of all these tombs.

After Westmister Abbey, we caught the nearest tube to go to the Natural History Museum. We ate there in the family cafeteria-style restaurant before hitting the dinosaur display. We briefly detoured to the Creepy Crawlies, then went over to the dinosaur section - at the mechanized T-rex, Abby asked, "Is this real?" Fortunately, she was convinced that it wasn't, so no nightmares resulted. Then it was a rapid tour through mammals and into the huge elephant/whale hall before leaving.

It Then it was once again back to the Tube for our connection at St. Pancras train station. Once there, we approached the men at the trains with our tickets. They looked at them and told us they were for the 7:25, not the 7:00 like we thought. We were puzzled by this, but took their word for it, and went to sit down. A little later, when we went back to check the board about the train, we started realizing that we MUST have been on the 7:00 because of our seat reservations. When Bill took the tickets over to a different man to ask him, he said yes, we did have seats on the 7:00, but that the top of our ticket said super saver, which was why the other guys thought we were on a different train. He told us to get on the 7:25 anyway and go up to coach B. All of those seats were reserved, but happily, no one was taking them and the train was pretty empty, so we helped ourselves; it ended up working out OK afterall.

(us at St. Pancras train station)