Europe I: London

These Europe posts have been hanging over my head.  I know I need to get them done, but how in the world do I put all of it into words?  Do I even want to?

I've decided, yes I do, for our sake mostly.  We will forget all the little details if I don't write it down.

The trip was really the best vacation Matt or I have ever been on.  I mean, come on!  Two weeks in some of the coolest and most beautiful places in the world.  Together!  I kept thinking, "I can't believe we get to do this!"  We are so so blessed.

So without further ado...

London

DAY 1 - We landed in London around 10:30am (2:30am in our brains) and by the time we got through customs, took the tube into the city, and got to our apartment it was about 2:00pm.  By this point, we had both been awake for 24hrs (neither of us really slept on the plane).

One of the biggest blessings of this trip was the flat we got to stay in.  Matt's dad, Jimmy, works with Lloyd's of London and they have a two bedroom flat they let clients use.  Jimmy called and asked if we could use it and they said yes.  This place was in an awesome location (the City) and had an incredible view:

Yeah.  That's Tower Bridge. What!?!

So, like I said, we had both been awake 24 hours and we knew if we sat for even 5 minutes in that apartment we would fall asleep immediately.  So I took a quick bath and then we decided to walk to St. Paul's Cathedral which was only a little over a mile away.

The weather for us during the entire trip was pretty strange.  The first week we were there it was so cold it felt like winter to us Angelinos.  The second week it was like summer.  Well, if that first week was cold, then the first day was freezing!  We were about 10 blocks from St. Paul's, exhausted, freezing, and it started to rain.  Not drizzle, but pouring down rain.  Matt and I found an awning to hide under, but by this time we were soaking.  When it let up to a light rain a couple minutes later we thought we'd make a run for it as the Cathedral was in eyesight.  As soon as we came out from the awning it started hailing! So back under the awning we went.

I started fearing our whole trip was going to have weather like this and honestly all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball right then and there and fall asleep.  Finally, the hail turned back into a drizzle and we made our way over to St. Paul's.  I was really excited....

We walked around a bit (the Cathedral really is beautiful) and then decided the rain had won and we ran over to Wagamama to eat, realizing we hadn't eaten since the plane.

After dinner, it was still raining and really cold so we decided to take the tube back home.  We forced ourselves to stay awake by watching Top Gear.  Finally, we let ourselves go to bed at 8:00pm.  We just couldn't stay awake any longer!

DAY 2 - Well, sure enough, at 3:30am we were wide awake.  We ate some breakfast and then managed to fall asleep at 7:00am and we were up again at 9:00am.  We got ready and headed out.  My goal that day was to see all the icons (Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, etc).

But what I mostly cared about were London's Royal Parks.  One of my favorite movies, if not my most favorite movie, is Finding Neverland and the scenes of J.M. Barrie in the London parks are so beautiful. They are just as beautiful in person.

After walking around for miles and miles (our feet were KILLING by the end of the day) and eating our first of many meals at Pret a Manger we returned home to get ready for dinner at La Petite Maison where we had a very yummy meal.  

photo from here

DAY 3 - When people ask what our favorite thing we did in Europe was we give them our top three.  And day 3 contains one of our top three.  Us nerds went to the Leavesden Studio Tour.  It. Was. Amazing.  So amazing, in fact, that it warrants another blog post.

So let's fast forward.  That night when we got back into London (Leavesden is a 30 minute train ride away) we went to the South Bank to grab a bite.  We ate at Tapas Brandisa and has some seriously good Spanish food.

Then we walked around a bit before going back across the Thames on the Millennium Bridge.  Good thing dementors didn't attack while we were trying to cross.

DAY 4 - On our last day, we did some more walking and saw some of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen.  My favorite being The Natural History Museum.  We also walked around Harrods which was overwhelmingly big.

After that, we ate some Italian for dinner and then headed home to pack.  In the morning, we were off to Durham...