Here I am with my mom and my brother, on the plane to London! It was a long flight, and we got very little sleep because of being so excited. But we traveled all day Wednesday and landed in Heathrow, United Kingdom at 10am on Thursday. Then we picked up our rental car and drove 3 hours on the wrong side of the road, and on the wrong side of the car. Thanks to my brother Scot for helping us out!!
 |
| We drove to Yorkshire where Scot's mission presidents lived. They just completed their mission, and my brother wanted to visit them since President Bryan Skelton has terminal cancer, and won't be around much longer. We were exhausted when we reached their house, I kept falling asleep on the couch as we were talking to them, they invited us to our rooms to take a nap. Then Sister Skelton politely knocked on our door to notify us dinner was ready. |
She made a lovely meal for us, complete with 6 utensil settings, she served lamb and roast chicken, yorkshire pudding (egg rolls), steamed vegetables and roasted potatoes, and they cover their whole plate with gravy. Then she made us this apple berry cobbler a la mode with custard sauce on top. DIVINE!
The next morning we woke up and drove to London to explore a little and get tickets to a Broadway play. We should've gotten there early, because you can get cheap Broadway tickets there in London, and we did 35pounds each. But the good shows were taken early. I couldn't get over the double-decker buses and cute telephone booths all over.
Our Marriott was 15 mins. outside of London, in Twinkelton and was connected to the England Ruby Stadium. It was huge, and so was this statue out front.
We went to our room and changed for the show. We saw Evita at the Dominion Theater. Such a cool experience! Loved it. "Don't Cry For Me Argentina!
We went to bed late and had to wake up at 4:30am to catch the train to Paris! We slept on the train, no worries. Then with our tour group we went around to see the amazing sites of Paris, France.
We saw The Arc de Triomphe, National Assembly Hall, Le Palais de Chaillot, Les Invalides, and more.
We stopped at The Louvre, and it was the biggest art museum I had ever seen. If you took 6 months straight to look at everything, you still wouldn't see it all. It's enormous. There's an inverted pyramid inside and on the bottom floor of the Louvre, pretty cool.
We saw the Place de la Concorde fountain, amazing.
Then we stopped at the Eiffel Tower. We were supposed to have lunch at the top of it, in the restaurant there, but since it was Fashion Week there, it was booked for the week,
so we had a lunch cruise down the Seine River.
On our boat tour down the Seine River, we saw so many cool things, Les Invalides, L'Assemblee Nationale, Le musee d'Orsay, La cathedral Notre-Dame, L'Hotel de Ville, La Conciergerie, Le Louvre, Le Palais de Chaillot, and La Statue de la Liberte.
The food was super fancy French style on the boat cruise. Between all of us, we had Chestnut cream soup, ceps royale, Poached egg with crayfish soup, Pressed Duck with loie gras and le puy lentils, Salmon steak, cabbage cooked in butter, Roasted farmhouse chicken, real jus, mashed potatoes (half butter, I swear!), Iced entremets (ice cream) chocolate, mandarin, bulgarian, and small pot of cream with salted caramel sauce, tasted like creme brule without the hard topping. I don't like salmon, and the pressed duck was better than I thought it would be. Chicken was good.
,
After the lunch cruise, we got off to do some shopping. We went into these little chocolate/candy stores, so ornate and bright. They were famous for their macaroons, but they're not the coconut kind, they're the baked meringue kind. These Lancel purses were crazy expensive $1500 and up.
Then we took the train back home, got home to the hotel late, but not super late and went to bed. Had to get up at 6 for the tour in London!! First we started at Buckingham Palace. It was fantastic, the gate with the golden lion symbols was neat. We didn't get to see the changing of the guards since it was Sunday, boo.
Then we went to see Westminster Abbey. It was beautiful, but we couldn't go in it because it was Sunday,
we were so bummed!
Then we went on a boat tour that took us by the London Bridge and other sites.
We got off at the Tower of London.
The Tower of London was way cool. This is where they built the castle and wall to protect them against enemy attacks, where Anne Boleyn lived and was executed, and where the crown jewels were kept.
Seeing the crown jewels was amazing, they were so beautiful and HUGE diamonds, rubies, emeralds, etc. We couldn't take pictures of them... so sad. Right outside there was this guard (below) that my mom and I were trying to get a picture with, and he was so rude he wouldn't turn around. He had just taken two pictures with two different groups right before us, but decides not to with us, how rude!
 |
| After the Tower of London, we saw St. Paul's Cathedral. This is where Prince Charles and Princess Diana got married. Luckily, we were able to go inside this one (but couldn't take pictures) and it was magnificent. So detailed with the stained glass and architecture. I loved it. There was some choir singing at the stage inside too, nice to hear. |
That night we went home, early this time and got some food. London is known for their fish & chips, so we had to get some. It was ok, nothing fancy. There are danishes galore there in London, any kind you can think of! It was such a fun trip, so fast, NO sleep, but totally worth it.
Thanks fam for the good memories! Love you!
