European Vacation - London

Day 1 - Arrival in London

We arrived in London at around noon local time.  We figured out how to take the train from the airport to the train station attached to our hotel.  Victoria Station we thought was near our hotel, and so we left the train station with our luggage and walked around the block and a park, realizing later that the train station is actually part of the hotel and there an entrance that links the two together directly.   We never did quite figure out how to use that entrance efficiently, always ending up in a strange section of the train station and finding ourselves on the London streets and in the midst of construction chaos!   Needed a couple more days to perfect that part aparently.

Our goal was to try to keep ourselves up until at least 9pm.  The best way (in my opinion) to avoid terrible jet lag is to keep yourself up and then fall asleep when it is night time where you are and wake up when it is morning in the time zone where you are.

After about 20 hours total of travel, we stayed up another 5 hours by walking around to the local spots near our hotel.  First stop, somewhere to eat!  I was determined to eat the local food (within reason).  This turned out to just be a burger and fries (although they put mayonnaise on their fries).  My mom got fish and chips, but even though I was trying cultural food I couldn't bring myself to eat breaded and deep fried food.  So I skipped that 'local cuisine'.

I had a local cider of some kind, too tired to remember what it was, but delicious and refreshing.   I think it was berry.

• Next we were off to see Buckingham Palace.  Aside from the darling little guards in their cute hats and outfits...they had beautiful fences and gates and fountains.  I was less impressed with the actual building, but it was interesting to see it all and walk around there.  They actually happened to be setting up for the anniversary of the Queens Coronation 60 + ago.  
• I did really want to see the 'Changing of the Guards', however it is quite a long process and only happens once a day and my mom had said the crowds are absolutely unbelievable.  Not my kind of place (I get terrible anxiety with large crowds and being bumped into).  So I settled or just a picture of a guard from a distance.

After walking around the Buckingham Palace area we headed off to find some dinner and to see Harrods a famous Luxury Department Store!
I was slurring my speech by this point and dazed a bit, but it was unbelievable how beautiful and amazing the products and departments were.  It puts Bergdorf's to shame!  There was a luxury pet department, furniture, interior design, lavish children's clothes, and many many more.  About 10 stories all together, each department having its very own 'shop'.  I didn't find anything to buy, however I'm kind of glad, because in my state who knows what I would have ended up with.

I fell asleep in the taxi ride home and finally hit my head to the pillow around 8:30 without even taking off my shoes.  Got up at around 11pm to wash my face and put on my PJ's to rest up for the early morning and long day ahead of us.