London 2015 – Day 1

Man do we ever love London! We had such a full first day I swear I feel like I am already on Day 3!

The flight was uneventful, and getting to the hotel was easy - albeit a long trek.  The room wasn’t ready for us when we got there (around 10AM) so we just left the bags and went off to start our London Adventures.

First on the list was to do the O2 Climb.  It was fun, but I didn’t realize that you can’t see downtown London from up there!!  That aspect was a little disappointing, and so was the weather – I think this activity is more enjoyable when the skies are blue – but no regrets.

Getting strapped into the climbing/safety harness was good for a laugh too!!! The way our coats got bunched up in front, we looked pregnant!

After this, we:

• Watched the marathon runners near the Parliament buildings and Big Ben (ironically, we also arrived in London on marathon day in 2006)
• Walked through Whitehall Gardens

 

• Went for coffee in Leister Square

• Hung out in Trafalgar Square for a while

 

• Wandered around Soho and went for supper at the Indian Resto I fell in love with in 2012… Fell out of love with it tonight – we both have heartburn!

• Meandered around Covent Garden

• Explored Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street

• Had a final drink and called it quits around 7:30

It took us about an hour and a half to get to the hotel because of work on the Bakerloo line.  We got about half way with the Tube, then had to take a shuttle bus, then a light rail to get to our stop.  We were exhausted by the time we got ‘home’.

Then as I was unpacking, I realized I forgot my IPhone plug!!! I purposely did not bring the European one, but how could I have not realized I would need at least the North American one to charge it up??? So stupid. Luckily, I can charge it via my laptop if that is plugged in – thank God for that! It saved my bacon because I was down to about 30% power and need it to be especially ready tomorrow since we are meeting up with our friends from Chicago in the afternoon and plan to email each other to fix a time & place.

Because I had to turn on the laptop to charge my IPhone, I decided I might as well write up my blog post.  I was not going to bother tonight since I really should be getting to sleep – but since I have to wait for the IPhone, I might as well (it’s at 77% now).

As you can probably guess from the pictures, the weather is cold and grey – but we came prepared.  Hats, scarves, mitts…  my husband even brought his parka just in case!