Our week has flown by!! Here it is the end of our last day in London, as we have a car coming to get us at 4:35 (!) tomorrow morning to take us to St. Pancras Station (whatever that is) where we will catch the 5:30 Eurostar to Paris. We'll have a guided tour, lunch at the Eiffel Tower, tour the Louvre, and cruise the Seine, before we have an 8:39-ish train back to London, arriving back at 9:40pm. We'll collapse afterwards, and then wake up and pack the next morning. Our airport transit is due at noon on Friday.
So it's been a fun week ... starting with the Big Bus Tour, which we boarded against the advice of one of my travel books, but which I really think was a good idea. We stayed on for almost the whole ride, until we hit some interminable traffic on the 'embankment' and decided to just jump off and walk back up via St. James Park. We took a few photos of Buckingham Palace, headed up through Green Park, and found ourselves back at the hotel. Then we hopped back on the Big Bus again, took it to the London Eye, which we were surprised to find ourselves able to get on with much less of a wait than the line would lead you to believe. The Eye was a fun ride, not very long, but it does give you great views. Fifteen minutes later and we would have been able to see all the lights of Parliament.
The ducks ride was fun but not nearly as informative as the Big Bus, although far more entertaining. The duck drops into the Thames right by MI6, the big London spy building, and the guide made fun all of the workers on the street, calling them spies, and saying, "that spy is texting another spy.." when he passed a man feverishly at work texting away. After that we had dinner with Kevin's friend Kevin from work, at a little pub/restaurant in the financial district that was practically empty but still gave us a hard time about having kids, calling Brian "a small boy who is wearing a hat."
We took the advice of one of my books and hit the Tower of London at just past 9 and that was good advice although it made the tube pass cost significantly more (discounts begin at 9:30). We walked right in, headed straight for the crown jewels and then to the White Tower. I have a fascination for the Tower and its grisly past since reading The Other Boleyn Girl, but it still does make one sick to think of the way life was back then. I didn't enjoy the model torture apparatus that was out on the lawn that used to be the moat.
Otherwise, we've had some tube experiences, some walking around trying to find store experiences, and some other general urban experiences. The most horrifying and hysterical (you just really had to laugh) was today, when we took the tube to Covent Garden, and, following the sign that said 'steps' we left the crowd who headed towards the lift. Who takes a lift from a subway? Well, I will tell you: anyone who wants to survive the trip up! There had to be more stairs on that exit than there were on the Cape May lighthouse. It was a never-ending spiral staircase that really caused you to feel like you just might not make it. Hysterical laughter didn't help. Then, when we got to the top, we walked in a huge circle for 20 minutes before discovering that if we had gone left instead of right, we would have been right where we needed to be!
And in other news, we are now off to our favorite haunt, The Hard Rock Cafe, to see about having Megan's birthday dinner. If the wait is ridiculous, I guess we will need a Plan B. But now the kids are getting irrititating, and so we really must go. The only other funny bit of trivia I wanted to mention involves Kevin and his passport. He prides himself on his world-traveler-ness, and was ashamed that he had to travel with a blank passport, as were the other three of us. He felt it brought him down to our level. Well, as we were passing through the first point at which you have to show your credentials, Kevin was asked to sign his. Heh heh. (Disclaimer: post not proofread!)
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