London Loop

We were in London for 24 hours. During that time I slept for 4 hours and ran 15 miles. Priorities or jet lag? I ran 5 miles the afternoon we arrived, and another ten miles the next morning. After sitting in bed wide awake for four hours on Thursday morning (July 18th), I pulled on my running clothes and went out into the steady drizzle for a sightseeing run. I brought my phone for the Google maps to help me navigate to as many sights as I could find. Our hotel was two blocks from King's Cross Station and St. Pancras International Station (I chose it for that reason, since we were taking the train to France later that day). So my starting point was conveniently centrally located in London Town. It has been eleven years since I spent time in London outside of Heathrow, and it was fun to revisit all of the favorites.

 First up was St. Paul's. It is so big there is hardly a way to take it all in.

The steps of St. Paul's--reminds me of "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins. 

The Tower of London--especially fun to run past after recently reading My Lady Jane, a FUN magical fictional story all about Jane Grey's short rule. 

 My favorite has always been the Tower Bridge. It's just so castle-like.

 I also ran across London Bridge (in the background there) but it is just a normal bridge. I knew that yet I was still underwhelmed by its normalcy.

St. Paul's is even large from across the river Thames. 

Shakespeare's Globe, entirely reconstructed, but it deserves to be there. The Bard is totally a British icon. 

The London Eye--the only observation wheel I've ever ridden (11 years ago). 

Big Ben was shrouded in scaffolding, which I was expecting since a friend of mine recently visited London and mentioned it. 

Favorite statue: Nelson Mandela. 

Westminster Abbey

Darling British street. 

 Red mailbox, British red brick houses.

 St. James Park was very tranquil and green, green, green with all of those big old beautiful trees.

I had to extend my run to pay my respects to the queen at Buckingham Palace. Worth it. 

 Back through St. James Park, heading to the hotel. It started raining again and rained the rest of my run.

It felt silly jogging under that covered sidewalk past The Ritz Hotel in my grungy drizzle-wet soggy running clothes. 

Our very basic very expensive hotel room (which cost more per night than our 3 bed 2 bath 2 story Paris Airbnb apartment). Jolly ole London prices.

Jeff went on a run when I finally got back from my ten miler, and we ate a British breakfast provided by the hotel, complete with beans on toast, a fried egg, and ham. I actually only ate the toast (one bite with beans in the name of culture, the rest with jam) because my tummy does not like heavy food in the morning. We checked out of the hotel, stored our bags at the front desk, and went out to see what we could see during the few hours before our train left. We actually had to take two separate trains to France because while we were booking our tickets a few weeks ago, one train sold out. Jeff and Jay left two hours before the rest of us, and we met them in France later that night.

 First stop: Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross. It was a madhouse. Eleven years ago when Jeff and I visited, it was simply half of a luggage trolley sticking out of the wall, but now there's a gift shop and a roped off line for people to stand in to take pictures with the trolley. We had zero interest in standing in a line, so we took a far-off picture and left.

It was rainy so we decided to ride a double decker red bus across town. We enjoyed sitting up high and wondering how our massive bus squeezed through the narrow streets full of traffic. 

 We disembarked at Trafalgar Square and took a walk through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace.

 Some sort of horse display was marching past the palace.

 Classic red phone booths seem to be more like outhouses these days--I could not even bear to close the door it reeked so strongly of urine.

 Riding the bus back to the train station, we got the prime front row seats up top. 

 Amber could not keep her eyes open. This girl NEVER falls asleep unless she's in bed, so it was extra amusing and fun to watch her poor little jet lagged self go all limp and heavy.

 Eventually she sank sideways onto my lap and slept for the final fifteen minutes of the bus ride.

Amber perked up at the train station after a late lunch while waiting for our 4:22pm Chunnel train.

I slept for an hour on the train and woke up in France. It was disorienting! When we arrived at the Gare du Nord in Paris, I had to do some serious navigation: buy bus tickets, find the bus stop, and figure out when to get off. Buying the tickets was easy, but finding the bus stop proved ridiculously difficult. We kept finding bus 26 stops but they were all heading the wrong direction! At last after more walking, we found the right stop.We had walked an entire bus stop down the line before finding the right place! It was getting dark and starting to rain, and we were downtown with crowds of rowdy people. It was stressful herding tired daughters through the chaos, even with my mother-in-law helping. The bus was rerouted due to construction, so the scrolling "prochain arret" (next stop) message on the bus was incorrect and we nearly missed getting off at our stop. Thankfully Jeff was waiting for us at the stop and he flagged us off. He said "I suddenly knew that I needed to NOT be in our apartment, so I went out to the bus stop." Prayer: answered. 

We made it to our darling Paris apartment and got a late kebab dinner, which helped immensely. Even better was the 8 solid hours I slept that night! I barely moved an inch all night, I was so tired. FRANCE, we're HERE!