England #2 - Getting There

Well, travelling is hard work. And the best laid planes -- oops -- I mean plans sometimes go awry.

Our Saturday evening flight was to leave Toronto at 10 PM. Wrong! We didn't leave Toronto until 1 PM on Sunday. In fact, the airline -- which shall remain nameless to protect the guilty -- had to put us up in a hotel for the night. Something about a mechanical problem with the plane.

Nick was not happy. His opinion was that the entire trip was ruined.

However, after spending two days in the same clothes (yuk!), we finally arrived at Gatwick airport outside London at 1 am Monday morning.

Nick:

Luckily, we caught the last train from the airport to London. We caught it by two minutes. Actually it wasn't luck at all ... we were praying!

We got to our apartment fairly quickly and we greeted by a very nice caretaker. We walked about four blocks with him to our building and then had to carry our luggage up two flights of stairs, me dangling behind the pack. We finally got up to a very nice studio apartment. The bathroom is fairly good. It has tunnel-like doors -- very small. There are two pull-out beds (one from the couch and one from the cupboard). Before bed, we had some homely soup that put us right off to sleep for about five hours.

I woke up at about 9:30, sleeping through my aunt's hair dryer, alarm clock and walking around the apartment! Did I mention I was a heavy sleeper?  [He also snores! JB]
We started with breakfast at Starbucks, having a muffin and yoghurt. I had a hot chocolate and Auntie Janice had a coffee.

We went closer downtown looking for the double-decker bus tour, snapping pictures here and there, when we saw the Royal Mews. We thought we could get a little sightseeing in before we went on the bus tour.

The Royal Mews is where the Queen keeps her horses and carriages. Henry VIII kept his hunting falcons there hundreds of years ago. The Mews is beside Buckingham Palace. 

When we started, we got there just in time to catch a bit of a tour. They told us the history of the place, then we got see some royal horses, then the royal horses that actually pull the Queen's carriage. We saw the suits of gold that the men that drive the horses and stuff like that wear. Then we saw the horses' harnesses that were all engraved with gold. And then, at the end, -- fancy, schmancy -- we saw the Queen's State Coach. It was AMAZING!!! It is the biggest carriage I will ever see in my life. Every bit of it was engraved with gold and sculptured to the perfect touch.

Then we saw other coaches that, through the years, the royal family has used and has been given by Australia, Scotland and Ireland. A lot of them were very beautiful, but the best was the one from Australia, because it had air conditioning, power windows, power doors and about every other power you can think of. Nice!

After that we got to go to a gift shop where I got a cool little toy soldier. Then we left.

We spent the rest of the day on the top of a double decker bus seeing the sights. We saw many things (from the outside) -- Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, the London Eye, the Parliament Buildings, the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, the Aquarium, Westminster Abbey and many other places -- some of which we hope to visit later to see the insides.

The weather turned gorgeous; so far we haven't seen a drop of rain. After several hours on the bus, we decided to leave and take a boat cruise on the Thames back to where we could pick up the right subway home. While we waited for the boat, Nick fell asleep. I think we're a tad jet lagged!

Nick:

Scratch out what she said about me falling asleep. It doesn't matter. Anyone who reads this and let's this out -- my wrath will fall. [He was so cute! JB]

We grabbed a subway back to our area. Then, for dinner, had some bangers and mash! In Canadian English this means sausage and mashed potatoes with peas. Yum!! We had some ice cream and then came to type this. Soon we're going to get groceries and tomorrow -- more travelling. And hopefully, another travelogue entry!

So, bye for now. Sincerely, Nick and Auntie Janice

PS: This place is like Disneyland so much to do but so little time.

PSS: I wasn't cute and i wasn't sleeping I was aahhh resting my eyes ya resting my eyes that's right --whistle, whistle ..