London Day 2, 1 of 2

I slept like the dead. Which is a miracle by the way, as I am known to not be able to sleep in hotels.
We packed up our suitcases, dropped them off at the left baggage room and headed out. Our plan that day was to see the Changing of the Guard, National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. However, I thought we might try to get into Westminster Abbey first because I saw online that tickets for the day we planned were sold out and I was freaking out that I had screwed up and my child's dreams would be crushed.

Waiting for our train.

Lena's first view of the iconic Big Ben. She is not acting here. This was really her face when we exited the tube station. Seriously.

Westminster Abbey

I thought: 30 minutes before opening would be sufficient time. HA! We got there at 9:00 and there was already a massive line. We were worried we wouldn't get in and still make it to see the Changing of the Guard. So we left. We headed through St. James Park (amazing park) Did I mention that it was windy? I kept thinking it would ease up as the morning went on.

Can you tell Lena loves Trees?

Rockin' the Crocodile

One handed no less!

Buckingham Palace

Yep, the wind was destroying any chance of a good hair day.

Squirrels!

We had a little time to waste until the Changing started. So we circled around trying to find the best vantage point. Now. I wish I had listened to my inner voice and not gone where we did. We went to the inner circle where Queen Victoria's monument is. If I had any piece of advice besides skipping the Changing of the Guard is to stay on the Mall.(rhymes with pal) You will have the freedom to leave when you want, less people and you see the important marching. This was the only thing in our entire trip that I wish we could have skipped. We wasted so much time doing nothing for something so unworthy. We found a place, and once you find one, you kinda need to stick around and hang onto it, you might not find another as good. 

While it was breezy during the ceremony, all hell broke loose as soon as it was done. There were little itsy bitsy green bugs that were sticking in everyone's hair, and clothes. The wind picked up dust and no one could see.

Finally made it to the National Gallery

I had to laugh, It was so windy and Lena refused to come out of her hood so I snapped a picture to remember the moment.

Part 2 is next!

London Day 1

If you haven't figured it out by now, Lena is a big history freak. Especially about the Tudor's.
When I was 20 I took a solo trip to London. I fell in love with it. Later I returned with my husband.

Ever since, I have had literal dreams of taking Lena to London and sharing it's history with her.
Our dreams came true in May. All the stars aligned just right and I was able to get amazing tickets, a great hotel and of course, planned everything down to the nano second.

I am terrible in life organization, and homeschool organization, however when it comes down to planning trips, I don't want to miss a thing. (cue Aerosmith)

In my dreams I always come to a sudden realization that I forgot to go to a certain place that I have always wanted to show Lena. So I HAD to have everything well researched and planned out so there would be no opportunity to miss anything. 2 months before I started gathering information on Lena's MUST SEE list, added in a few things that I thought would be fun and created the ultimate master list. I would say we followed about 80% of it. Some days we were just plain exhausted.

The weather ended up being MUCH colder than we had planned for, even the Londoners were upset at the state of the weather. We made sure that this was not going to be a deterrent for us. We were blessed that it never rained.

One half mistake, but not really a mistake, was our flight. I am not 100% sure I would honestly do it over again, but here is the situation.

Lena has food allergies. So we had a choice. 1. Go with a great airline that we know and trust, deal with layovers, and no major transportation issues getting into London. 2. Go with the budget airline, hope for the best with the allergens and deal with transportation into London. (quicker in the long run) Same price for both flights. 1. 9 hours travel time 2. 5 hours travel time.

Smoking Cabin at Ben Gurion Airport

Crazy gymnast

Stewart is ready to fly

So are we!

Stewart is getting buckled in.

Of loading the plane in Istanbul

Preview of English phone booths

Second flight, here we come!

Foot rests on the flight. Makes things so much more comfortable for us shorties.

We chose #1. Turkish Airlines is amazing with food allergies. The airplanes are generally quite comfortable and the staff is very pleasant.

However. The world is crazy and had extra security measures in place. When we took our second flight from Istanbul to London, no electronics larger than a standard cell phone were allowed to be carried on board the airplane. We were lucky and only lost 2 cell chargers. Others were not so lucky.
The airport in Istanbul is a great place to sit back and be amazed at the diverse people who pass through there. We saw people from Africa dressed in traditional clothes. People either returning or going to Hajj. LOTS of Chinese tourists passing through. They have done a lot of work to the airport and made great improvements to making it more comfortable for travelers.

Finally we were on our way to London!
If you have never been at the Heathrow airport, it is MASSIVE. They have signs letting you know that it will be a 17-20 minute walk to get from point A to point B WHAT!?
We had a goal to be at our hotel by a certain time and out to our first stop that night. So we needed to hustle.

First things first, Heathrow Express to Paddington Station. It's a very quick 15 minute ride. I planned on walking to our hotel from there as on the map it claimed to be a quick 15 minute walk. One thing I learned quickly is that 15 minutes usually means 25. We were still going on adrenaline from the excitement of finally being there, so it wasn't so bad.

We got to our hotel Central Park Hotel-Hyde Park  The receptionist apologized and told us that although we requested a higher floor, all they had at the moment was a basement room. BUT they said they would switch us the next day for a higher floor. We dropped our bags and ran to get our Oyster Cards to use on the tube. Our first stop was Decathlon. This is like a huge Wal-Mart for sports wear. Everything is so cheap! We got there at 6pm and spent 2 1/2 hours there before I was ready to die. Back on the tube and home to deposit our goodies and off to dinner. We found Bella Italia Queensway down the street from us. We managed to find something safe for Lena to eat, stuffed our faces, grabbed some snacks for the next day at Sainsbury local and went back to the hotel to sleep.