Welcome to London!

Our flight from Atlanta to London was less than ideal, to say the least. It was a small plane, a dirty plane, and an uncomfortable plane. And, there were crying babies. We were amazed at one young mother who was accompanying six very small children including one tiny baby. 

We slept very little and the food was terrible, but everyone woke with a good attitude which is incredibly important in such situations. We met Charlotte, our tour director, and our other group at Heathrow. The other group is from Oglethorpe, Ga, and we all seem to travel quite well together. Their kids stick to themselves, and our kids stick with us, and there is surprisingly little interaction between the two. 

It took us a long ride, more than an hour, to get from Heathrow to our hotel, The Hult Tower. We unloaded and put our bags into storage and quickly made our way down to the Underground Station for our first London Tube experience. We got on at Aldgate East and rode seven stops to Embankment. We made our way to the street level and found ourselves near a street with lots of little restaurants. We grabbed a lunch to go and ate a picnic in a shady park. Some groups got to see a giant chess set. Our group found a one-legged pigeon which was later named a flamingeon as the new species we discovered on the trip.

 Kids were so nervous at this point!

 Lunch in the park. 

 After lunch, we crossed the Thames for our London Eye exper

After the London Eye, we took off across the city and headed towards dinner. On the way, we walked through Trafalgar Square which, personally, is one of my favorite places on Earth. McKenzie turned to me and said, "I can't believe this. I'm so alive." We felt that we were at the center of the universe with the energy around us. We saw some of everything. So many parts of the world all in one space. The kids scattered (with their buddies, of course) to meet us again in 15 minutes at the base of the George Washington monument. 

Our dinner was scheduled at Bistro 1 and they weren't quite ready for us. We took a walk through China Town and right back to the restaurant. We had chicken and mash which was basically a fried chicken cutlet over a bed of mashed potatoes. Our dessert was a delicious banalfi which was a banana and chocolate pie. Each kid was so exhausted that they didn't really care what they ate, but they held their heads up through the meal. 

We hit the tube for a ride back to our hotel, and we got settled in for the night.