My last night with the group was a very good one! We stayed at a bed and breakfast in London that ended up being GREAT for me and my roommates. We ended up having the ONLY air conditioned room that the bed and breakfast offered! We were pretty happy since we were accustomed to the lower temps in Ireland and the lower temps we had experienced in London before that. The temperature when we got into London was around 80 degrees and the night stayed warm! Almost everyone packed in our room that was for 3 of us…a double bed and a twin bed! Yup it was definitely an interesting arrangement! We ended up going to a pub that night and then just hanging out at the bed and breakfast. Nothing too exciting as everyone had a long plane ride home the next day!
Today is the day that mom gets here! I ended up riding with everyone who was going to the airport because they had to be there around 11:30 and mom was due in around 12:30, so it made the most sense to jump on the free coach ride that I had to pay for anyways to get to the airport! I only ended up waiting for about 45 minutes before I got to see mom! I was super excited! We then ended up jumping on the Heathrow Express train that only takes about 18 minutes to get to the tube station we wanted to go to for our hotel. Well about 10 minutes into the ride a lightning bolt struck a signal box and ended up causing the express train to stop running for an indefinite amount of time. I knew that a taxi would be very expensive as our ride to the airport was about a 45 minute ride (with good traffic) and the ride back from the airport the previous day was more like a 2 hour ride. I had never rode the buses around London so didn’t feel that was a smart option; so the only other option for us was to take the tube back to the station stop we needed. That took us around 2 hours to get where we needed to go. From the time mom landed to the time we got checked into our hotel 4 hours had already past! Mom of course hadn’t slept at all on the plane right over, even though she was in first class and her seats reclined fully, so I knew I needed to keep her up for a while so she could get somewhat of a routine started. She decided that she just wanted to walk around London for some time and check things out. First stop we made was to the pub! We definitely needed some pub-grub energy to get us around! After that we took the tub to the Westminster Abbey area where mom got to see Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, and the London Eye! She definitely was amazed by everything! We decided to do the London Eye just so we could say we had been on it! It was really cool, but something I wouldn’t do again! After that we kept walking and I took her to the London tower bridge! She thought the tower bridge was the London Bridge; boy was she surprised when I actually showed her the London Bridge! (It is only a bridge, nothing fancy!) When we went by Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey it was still light and she wanted to see them lit up because I had earlier told her how pretty everything was lit up. So we ended up going back to those sights so she could see everything lit up! J That pretty much summed up our first night in London together!
Day two: London and flight to Paris
Day two held a morning where I told mom that we HAD to downsize everything since we had 4 bags together plus a carry on with my computer. This was not sensible for us as we pretty much have to carry our own luggage around from place to place and up and down stairs. I tried to warn mom that she couldn’t bring much; but she didn’t thoroughly get the message I was trying to send! That morning I ended up going to the local post office (Royal Mail) and talked to them about shipping things to the US. I made an executive decision that we were going to send a bunch of stuff back to the states. We ended up having to downsize a full suitcase by throwing things away or sending them home. When we got to the post office we had to weigh everything and it ended up being around 12 kilos; which is around 35 pounds! The people at the place were VERY nice to us and even taped the box together and helped me put everything in the box! Mom was very impressed by the customer service they had given us! So g-baby you can be expecting a big box around the 5th of July! J
After that we ended up getting back on the tube to go get me a Pandora charm. I had previously bought mom one and decided I wanted a bracelet like it and to pick out a charm in every country to remember my trip by. In Ireland is where I started my bracelet. I bought a four leaf clover that is made up of four red hearts! It can be purchased at any Pandora store; however, I will know that mine was purchased in Ireland! I had gotten moms present in the UK and that was the royal wedding charm. It is a heart with a blue sapphire on one side (like Catherine’s ring) and then the initials of C&W on it! It can only be purchased in the UK from April till September of this year, so I knew I needed to go get mine! I mean mom can’t have it when I don’t! So we made our way over to the Oxford Street where I had purchased mom’s….this is the street that I talked about earlier in my blog that is a mile and a half long street with stores on it! After that we decided to go to Buckingham palace. Mom decided she just HAD to see where Kate and William kissed! (Tho I don’t blame her I had wanted to see it too, I just already had!) She definitely liked that and sent a text of it to Kathy T! After that we made our way to Westminster Abbey so mom could see the inside of it! She definitely liked it just as much as I did! It definitely is a marvel to see! (She also wanted to see where the royal wedding had taken place! She is majorly obsessed with that wedding :P)
After that it was time for us to go collect our luggage and walk the 5 blocks to the tube station where we had to take the tube one stop where we could hop on the Heathrow Express to the airport! Wow that airport is really impressive! We belonged at terminal 5; so there is 5 different terminals. Our terminal had 3 different gates in them (A,B,C) C was a 25 minute walk from gate A! To me that was amazing that was only ONE of the terminals in this airport. I still have to look up is Heathrow is the biggest airport in the world, and it if isn’t, it definitely has to be close to one of the largest! It had many different stores in it! They even had a Harrods, which is a department store like Macy’s! Along with Harrods they had Tiffany’s and Gucci and Prada, and a bunch of high end too expensive for me!
The flight to Paris was only about a hour long plane ride! They offered me free wine, so of course I had to take it! Once we got into the airport we had to wait in line for customs. OMG, it was so hot waiting and the line was ridiculous! We also both had to use the restrooms which was on the other side of the customs window! Once we got through the line mom went to the bathroom which had a good 15 minute wait and I gathered our luggage. One thing that I have noticed in Europe thus far is that the restroom facilities are TOO small for the demand of people! They only had 2 stalls in the bathroom right by customs and it was the only bathroom in that area! The first thing mom does after the bathroom is looks at me and starts laughing! I asked her what the heck she was laughing at, and she goes, “there was no toilet seat on the toilet!” At this point she was a bit overtired and lacking sleep, but she was right in that bathroom the toilets didn’t have toilet seats….and we would soon find out that this would occur at more places than the airport!
We decided we would take a taxi from the airport to the hotel as we had NO idea where we were in comparison to where we belonged! Well, that was an interesting experience! We ended up being stuck in traffic at 10:30 pm (Oh and by the way, when you go to France you lose an hour of sleep, so mom has had no sleep since she’s got here and she now loses another hour of sleep!) We finally get to our hotel after over an hour in the taxi! This makes it just shy of 12 and we have to be up and out of the hotel by 7 the next morning! UFTA! Our hotel room for the night is very small; two twin beds that are pushed next to each other, a walkway about 2 feet wide next to each side of the bed and then at the ends of the bed probably a 3 foot gap to the wall! VERY SMALL! And our bathroom had no shower! Just a tub with a detachable shower head! I was stupid and knelt taking my shower because I had no idea how to use it, definitely felt like a midget! Mom figured out a way to stand and shower, I have yet to learn how she did it!
<3 E
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