We took off on Tuesday, flying out of Geneva to London Gatwick. We touched down during rush hour. First mistake of the trip. Do not take the trains during rush hour in London. We made it to the hotel after about 7 hours of total travel. We stayed at a place called Beaumont House. Fairly swanky, at one time a private residence then a Jesuit boarding school and now a hotel conference center. Second mistake of the trip was the restaurant at the hotel. Kids wanted something simple but all the restaurant had was a $40 buffet. Ended up getting room service pizza and fries, the kids were tired so actually turned out OK.
Wednesday morning we headed downtown London. Easy taxi/train from our hotel got us there in about an hour. Our first destination was Ben's Cookies in the Covent Gardens. After a little bit of wandering and a stop to watch a street performer, we found the cookie place...good cookies. We then headed down to Trafalgar Square. We watched some more street performers, took some photos, goofed around. This was actually a highlight of the trip for me, just the energy and history and being in a real city felt great. The kids just explored and we took some goofy pictures...I don't know it was just one of those moments.
On our way to Ben's Cookies we passed a theater advertising The Lion King and there happened to be a 2:30 show. I felt spulrgagious (its my blog, I can make up words if I want) and asked the kids if they wanted to go. It was awesome. I don't know if I have yet seen double digits in professional/Broadway type shows, but this one tops the list. If you get the chance go. The kids loved it.
We then did a bit of shopping and wandering again and started to head over to Big Ben and the London Eye. The plan was to see Big Ben, get some food and then ride the Ferris wheel. Third mistake of the trip, London is not laid out on a nice North/South by East/West grid like Minneapolis. I got us fairly lost for about 30 minutes and finally just popped into a pub to eat and try and figure out where we were. I had fish and chips and a Guiness, Izzi went with the bangers and mash and Xavier had a cheese burger and fries. Good pub food, I could eat it and get fat every day. After we ate, I got us a little loster (see above about made up words) and finally had to ask. Turns out I was leading the exact wrong way, there was actually no way possible to make us go any further away from our destination. We eventually got there and got on board. At this point it was dark (as planned by Xavier, he wanted to ride it at night) but the city was lit up and beautiful. I think it worked well for us, but I would actually suggest doing it first as it kind of gives you an overview of how London is laid out.
Finally we headed back to the train and arrived back at the hotel around 10:30. We were out and about for over 13 hours. We were all ready for bed and needed to get to sleep for Thrusday was day one of Lego Land.
More to follow...and pics
