The first day of an exciting adventure! Day 2 in London 2015 European Tour

Technical difficulties solved.....let's get on with the adventure:

We slept a little longer this morning until about 9am and just took our time getting ready and out the door of the hotel.  As much as we were eager to get busy discovering London....we still were on vacation and didn't want to rush and not get enough sleep.

As we walked out of the hotel, it was a gray and rainy morning.  No problems for us.....we were equipped with the perfect clothing, umbrellas, and rain ponchos if necessary.  Of course, we snapped a pic of our moment!

Our plan for the day was to buy a bus tour ticket on The Original Bus Tour.  This allows you to ride around the city and see all the exciting tourist spots.  We also had a ticket for a boat cruise on the River Thames.  This tour bus gave you the opportunity to "hop off" and "hop on" at the places you want to visit.  Since it was raining, we were lucky enough to get a seat on the top deck under the partial covered roof on the bus.

 

 

 Unfortunately, the view from the 3rd row back isn't that great from the front.  But the view got a whole lot better when the people in the front got off the bus.  I was in predator mode and scooped up a front row seat when we had the first opportunity.

 Most of the rest of these pictures I snapped as we were taking the bus tour......but I cannot exactly tell you where most of them are.  I was so fascinated with the crazy roads, the beautiful buildings and the excitement of this city.......that I was just snapping pictures like crazy.  So as you enjoy the rest of these pictures.......I'll just pop in a note or two about the places that I do remember!

This was a photo opportunity by the bus tour guide to snap a picture of the London Eye with Big Ben in the center of it.  Lucky for me I was on the good side of the bus to get this awesome shot!

This was crossing the Thames River on one of the many bridges that are located in the city.

What's more iconic.....a shot of all the double decker buses.

 

 It seemed like very little side street was amazing and had a character all its own.  Just turn your head sideways on this one.  It really demonstrates the awesome buildings in this city.

This was St. Paul's Cathedral directly in front of us.  This is the church where Prince Charles and Pricness Diana were married.  I just have to say......some of the most beautiful buildings you will see in any city are always the churches.  They were magnificent in London.

We went inside the church, but did not do the full tour since visiting churches is never a high point on Paul's list of things to do.

 

This picture reflects the new and the old of London.  In the background is two of their modern buildings.....the Gherken which is the one on the left that looks like the top of a missle.  The other building on the right is The Cheese Grater.  I must say that have unusual names for their structures.

 

Well there was still lots more that happened on this first day......but since this blog has gone on and on and on......we'll save the rest of our day for the next installment of Debbie's exciting life.

 

I'm so excited to be finally getting this written......looking at the pictures bring back so many wonderful memories of this awesome trip!

Public Service Announcement

I was sitting here writing about our London adventures, but unfortunately the pictures wouldn't download from my camera to my computer tonight. 

So...............that means I'm going to have to postpone that story by one day until I can get the photos downloaded.  I'm so excited to see them along with you.  I took most of them, but it's fun to go back and look at them and try to remember where the heck it was taken.

I need to hurry and get this trip documented......I don't want to forget a single detail.

In the meantime, since I have a million gazillion pictures.......I'll entertain you with a few more shots of our trip that magically worked at did get downloaded.  Stay tuned tomorrow for the details on how we spent our first full day in London.

When I look at these pictures, I still find it hard to believe that I was actually there.  What an amazing adventure I got to share with Paul.  How did I get so lucky?

I can't believe it......we are in London!

Thank you Pizza Zone for buying so much stuff that we were able to go to London on airline miles!

We finally got to use our passports and take a trip of our lifetime.

So......thus begins our 7 day journey visiting London.

Our plane didn't leave until 6:20pm on Saturday.  I had wanted to take the 3:30 flight, but Paul wanted to fly on a Dreamliner.  Actually, I'm glad we did -- although it did make us leave a little later in the day and delay the start of our adventure.

However, it probably was a good thing we were a little delayed.  Usually things happen at PZ while we are out of town -- this time we had two phone calls on our way to the airport.  The first one was related to a leak in the wall and the 2nd one was the walk-in cooler might not be working properly.

But of course Paul got those issues taken care of and as we waited to board our flight -- we took pictures of the planes coming in and out.

 He also wanted to take a picture of the Dreamliner that we flew on.  What an awesome airplane and so fast that it was only going to take 8 hours to fly 5000 miles.

 We made it to London at 9:30 am local time and after navigating the London customs, we jumped on the subway and headed to our hotel.

Here's the amazing view we found when we emerged from underground:

Upon our arrival to the hotel (which was only a 4 minute walk)....we checked in and decided that a little nap was a necessity before we did anything.

 

 Our hotel was exactly what we were looking for:  close proximity to public transportation, central location, and in a building that had character.  We achieved all three!

This was the view from our hotel window.  Luckily we were on the top floor and that gave us an awesome view every morning!

After sleeping for a couple of hours, we had an hour to kill until we were meeting up with Paul's friend, James.  As we wandered the streets, we found a little neighborhood park that was packed with people on a Sunday afternoon.

An interesting sculpture in the park that Paul felt the need to take a picture of because he liked it

The London taxi cabs looked a little different than what we were used to seeing.  We had a hard time in the beginning making sure we were looking the right way before we crossed the street.

 

We met up with Paul's friend and decided that we wanted steak for dinner.  Things that are different in London restaurants from the United States:

1. Cokes come with a lime or lemon.  No free refills
2. No bread with the meal unless you order is separately and pay for it
3. Portions are smaller
4. You have to ask for the check.  They will let you sit there as long as you want and visit, but when you're ready to leave -- you need to ask for it.

After dinner, James took us on a city bus tour of the city.  We really enjoyed our time with him.  Paul hasn't seen him in about 25 years......so they had a lot of catching up to do.

We saw parts of the city that we might never have seen had we not had a personal guide along with us.  After a couple of hours of bus sightseeing -- James headed back to his house and we found a quiet little pub a block away from the hotel.  We enjoyed a couple of local beers and shared our excitement at being in LONDON!

 

We had to get to bed.......we had a full day of sightseeing ahead of us!

 

Hope you missed me.....I've got lots to tell you

Wow.....today is May 23'rd and I haven't posted in almost a month. 

Trust me....it's not that I don't have tons of things to still share with you.  It's just that my schedule as been extremely busy these last few weeks.

But then again.......it sounds like a broken record because my whole life is always extremely busy. 

So.....I know that you've been dying to see what we've been up to.  Well probably you haven't been on the edge of your seats waiting for this, but I've been dying to get it all written down so that I don't forget what the heck we've been doing the last month.

But I am sorry to disappoint, because I don't have the time right this minute to update everything, but here's a few pictures to get you excited about all the things you need to know about what Paul and Debbie have been busy doing the last month!!!!

WARNING:  the photos you are about to view have not been edited due to time limitations.  Some of them might be scary images with Debbie's hair messed up or Paul's socks a little droopy.  Please don't be critical and judgmental.  Thank you in advance.

I just love looking back at my pictures, it makes me get that thrill that I had when we were there enjoying all of this.  Can't wait to be able to get this all documented here!