First of all, I'm loving that Bread Loaf (2 words) is snow covered! It's that time of year again when I start having ski dreams, and I can't wait to come home and wax up the ol' Atomics.
Daddy, loved hearing about the pheasant hunt. Sounds so fun! And how Vermonter of you!
Connor, how was Midnight Breakfast? It's always my favorite part about finals week. Good luck with the rest of your work! Just think, when you're heading home I'll just be starting my final papers (Yuk).
So, about London. Richard and I drove to his house in Essex on Sunday afternoon. It was so warm and cozy and the Christmas tree was lit up, it was so nice to be in a real home again! His parents are the nicest people and were very welcoming. His mom made me cupcakes to take back to school with me (delish! Just enjoyed one for breakfast!) We went to Adriana's, his fiance's, apartment for dinner, then came home and went right to sleep because we had to catch an early train into London on Monday morning.
We left Leigh On Sea (the station closest to Richard's house) around 9:52 (they were all delayed due to maintence) on Monday morning. We bought One Day Travel Cards, passes that allow you to ride any train, underground, or bus, as much as you want, all day, for only 14.00 pounds! Very useful. It was incredibly cold and foggy, but we were determined to make the most of the day. We began at the Tower of London. It was amazing! So old, the first part was built in 1275. We didn't go into it, just looked and took lots of pictures. In the same area is London Bridge (more properly called Tower Bridge). Unfortunately because of all the fog I couldn't see very far down the Thames, but it was still great. Then we noticed a sign for ice skating in the moat of the Tower. I've never had so much fun! We rented these big clunky blue plastic skates and twirled and carved our way around the Tower. Actually, it was just one rectangular rink, so it was more like back and forth by one wall of the Tower, but still the best time! I bought a picture of us skating that you'll be able to see. "Magical Memories, only 5.oo pounds", the sign said. How could I refuse such a good deal on a magical memory? From here we continued on to Buckingham Palace, still my favorite place in London, walked through St. James park, stopped for a classy British lunch at McDonald's, saw Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, and then found the train back home. Richard was great to have along because he knows London really well. He was a great guide and knew all the ins and outs of the travel system, so we got around pretty efficiently. We were exhausted on the train home but Richard's mom, Lauraine, was waiting at home making us a real English Dinner. Yorkshire pudding, brussel sprouts, pork and gravy, green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and meringue with raspberries and chocolate for dessert. At dinner Carly, Richard's sister, mentioned that one of her clients (she is a hairstylist at photo shoots, I was a little self-conscious of my split ends) had given her tickets to the London Eye, the giant ferris wheel, and that because this was my last time in London for a while I could have them! We weren't going to be able to go on it because tickets are quite expensive, so I was very excited to get the tickets. I might have squealed a little bit.
After dinner we were talking about the different places we had been, and joked that we'd nearly been around the Monopoly board. Our flat recently bought a Monopoly game, and the British version is all streets in London. So Richard and I got the brilliant idea that on Tuesday we would play human Monopoly and try to get to every street on the board, all 26, and all 4 of the railway stations. We decided that we would have to take a picture of the street sign and then a picture of both of us by the sign. Keep in mind that the streets are all over London, the range goes from Old Kent Road, a dodgy area that is equivalent to our Baltic, to Park Lane, where the Dorchester hotel is. We spent Monday evening with a map of the underground planning our route, and woke up extra early Tuesday morning to catch the first train into London. Our day was incredible! I don't think anyone has done a more complete or extensive one-day visit to London, ever. It took us 11 hours (we stopped for lunch and to look around the market in Camden), we rode 8 of 12 tube lines (a few more than once), and a bus, walked probably 15 miles, but eventually, at exactly 8:00, found Vine Street, the last of our destinations. You should have seen us running around London, we had this big clipboard with our map and a list of all the streets and stations we needed, and we'd jump off the tube that we knew was in the general area and run around using the GPS on Richard's phone to find the street. Then we'd have to find the actual street sign, take a picture, record the time of arrival on our clipboard, and run back to the underground to find our next stop. Some of the streets were in the most random places, people were giving us very strange looks as we jumped up and down in front of the sign for "Bond Street" and "Marlborough Street." Some of the streets were really hard to find and we had to walk forever to get to it, and then all the way back to the station. We both ended up with blisters. At one point I thought we wouldn't make it, especially after it got dark and it was rush hour. The underground was so full that I had to hold on to Richard's backpack so we wouldn't lose each other in the crowd. On the train, there was no room at all to move. It was a thousand degrees and my face was shoved up in some stranger's armpit while my arm was around some stranger's back and my toes were underneath some stranger's foot.
The last 3 places were the hardest to get, especially Old Kent Road which is in the middle of nowhere and a 25 min train journey from where we were. Then we had to walk through this sketchy neighborhood, along New Kent, until about a mile later we arrived on Old Kent. From there we caught a bus toward Vine, and finally, 2 hours after scheduled, we got on a train headed back to Essex. We took a video of our approach to Vine Street, and you would have thought we had discovered gold. We were jumping around shouting "Vine Street! Vine Street! We did it! We won!" and singing "we are the champions."
It was the best scavenger hunt, and the best way to see all of London. I saw a bunch of random things that I would never have known about because they are not the typical tourist destinations. It made me think it would be fun to do something similar in NYC or something, only do it as a race with teams of two. And every team would have to get pictures at a bunch of different landmarks or random street signs, and see who could get to all first. Next family outing??
It was sad to pull away from the station in London, I teared up a little after having such a good day and knowing it would be a while before I was back. But I couldn't have asked for a better way to say goodbye.
12 days until I'm home! Can't wait to see you all!
xoxo
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