First Full Day of London

We awoke this morning to the smell of ham, sausages, baked beans, eggs and toast wafting up from the breakfast room.  A Full English breakfast is included with our rooms, and it was very much appreciated and enjoyed by all of us.

London is ENORMOUS with so many incredibly important things to see that a day and a half like we had doesn't even really qualify as scratching the surface.  We have a busy day scheduled (is there any other kind) because Mrs. Mynatt fully intends to put as big of a scratch in London's surface as humanly possible!

You know this is our 2nd day (of many yet to come) of riding public transportation which just happens to be "The Tube" in London.  We've learned quite a few things about Tube Travel with 21 people.  You should see us when we exit from a Tube Car into the chaos of people.  Our 1st and foremost objective is to line up flat against the nearest wall for a headcount...with 21 people that's quite a bit of meticulous counting and double-counting.  This new lesson has helped us smooth out the kinks and move faster.  I think we're all becoming quite proficient, don't you:

Yesterday I overheard one of the girls say, "It actually doesn't feel like we're in London because we've not seen any of the big sights that makes you think of London".  That's true because all of those big sights were on TODAY'S agenda...and I mean ALL!

We exited our first Tube ride this morning into the wonderful sunshine reflecting off of the Thames and that same beautiful sunshine making the Houses of Parliament seem to glow. It was an extraordinary beautiful day in London and we are VERY VERY thankful for that.  It made our group pictures and short jaunt over to Westminster Abbey highly enjoyable...especially as we jaunted right on by all of the people lined up in front waiting for admission.  We had reserved ahead of time and our special entrance was from the Abbey Courtyard that's quiet and serene and most definitely without tourists choking the entrance.

After our initial group photos the Abbey was next:

After a little shopping in the Abbey Gift Shop and a quick snack at the trolley we were off to to the Tower of London to see a bit of medieval armour and the Crown Jewels in a medieval castle.  What magnificent opulence is stored there.  We weren't allowed to take photos of the jewels, but the rest of the place was a great group setting...especially with all of this gorgeous sunshine!  By the way I hear the rain pitter pattering outside my window tonight.  Thank you God for sending the rain AFTER we got returned to our hotel for the last time tonight.  Whew!

                                               A bit of Mr. Margene's trick photography...

After lunch in the Tower Cafe

there was no time to waste as we had to get to Paddington Train Station to catch the little slow train to Windsor Eton & Central Station to pick up our reserved tickets for Windsor Castle.  As we were making a mad dash to catch that train before it left from Paddington I had one of those deja vu moments with Angie as I laughed out loud and told her this was EXACTLY what we did with the 2012 student trip in London - that mad dash in Paddington must just be our lot in London :-)

Windsor is a beautiful quaint village with the Queen's working castle perched on the hill overlooking the village.  The grounds and gardens are impeccably manicured as you would expect of a royal residence, of course.  No photos in the castle, but outside is fair game:

By the way, just ask Caroline and Sarah what happens when you get too close to one of the Queen's guards :-)  They can be rather testy about the situation!

  

I think after looking back we have a whole days worth of sightseeing already by this point but...the schedule says we must keep on, but before we travel back to London we have about and hour and half of shopping and/or lunch and snack time.  But before we know it lunch time is over and we're back on the train...with heads bobbing left and right as nap time invades our ranks.

We head back to our hotel for an impromptu 15 minute break before heading out yet AGAIN to our final destination of the evening...our very own private capsule on the London Eye.  We chose 9:30 because that's when darkness begins to invade the city and the lights from Parliament and the rest of downtown London illuminate the city. It's really quite beautiful from atop the London Eye.

 

And to round out this day we FINALLY stumbled upon the one thing we had been looking for all day long.  With the advent of cell phones these little jewels are becoming more and more of a relic.  Glad we finally satisfied Elise and Emily H's longing by stumbling upon one...

What a day it has been.  We must have walked at least 7 miles today.  The adults are definitely exhausted and so are the students.  But it's a happy exhaustion :-)  Tomorrow is one of those dreaded "travel days" that just must be done because we can't just confine ourselves to London...that simply won't do.  Tomorrow after our big English Breakfast we'll drag our luggage across the street to St. Pancras station to board the fast Eurostar to Paris where (drum roll here) we have a car service reserved to pick us up from Gare du Nord.  I've confirmed and reconfirmed and reconfirmed again.  Let's all lift up a prayer asking that God would help this Parisien Car Service to be on time and in the right place!  That would DEFINITELY be a blessing.  The boys have been greatly ecstatic about the big English Breakfasts...just wait till they have their first French breakfast with only a 1/2 baguette and croissant ;-)  I'm guessing we'll be hitting several Patisseries and Boulangeries throughout the day.  That sounds good to me.  Good night from London and tomorrow we'll talk to you from Paris!