As much as I LOVED Paris, it's nice to be in a country where you can read signs and menus and actually understand what people are saying. London is awesome!!!
I wasn't sure that we were actually going to make it here. We had a series of mini catastrophes along the way.
Let's start from the beginning:
This morning we ate breakfast, packed our bags, and were waiting in the hotel lobby for our driver to pick us up and take us to the train station. We had allowed ourselves an hour and a half to check in at the train station and insure a stress free journey to England.
Our driver picked us up on time, and we were on our way to the train station, or so we thought. About 30 minutes down the road, we realized that we were way out of Paris and wondered if we were going in the right direction. My dad asked, "We are going to the train station, right?" The driver didn't really speak English but nodded his head yes. A few minutes later, we approached the airport. At this point, we knew we weren't in the right spot, so we showed our train tickets to the driver to figure out where exactly we were supposed to be.
Yep, we were supposed to be at a train station way back in Paris, and we found ourselves about 30 minutes away at the Paris airport (and that's without rush hour traffic.) The driver said there was no way he could get us back to the right train station in time. He told us our best bet was to take the train from the airport back to the train station in Paris.
I haven't talked about our trip to Versailles yet, but to put it mildly-we couldn't figure out the public transportation system in France to save our lives.
Um, panic mode?
Our driver offered to take us into the train station and buy our tickets. (Dang right, you better buy our tickets-you took us to the wrong place!) Well, as we learned yesterday, the ticket machine does not take credit cards unless it has a special pin code that we do not have. And it only takes coins, which we no longer have after yesterday. For some reason, this ticket machine didn't take our driver's card either, so we wasted about 10 minutes trying to get tickets. We finally got them and found the correct train to Paris. Everyone we've met has been extremely nice to us and helped us find where we needed to go-I think they feel sorry for the pitiful lost Americans!
So anyway, what was supposed to be a "10 minute train ride" back to Paris ended up being about 20 minutes. While we were on the train, my dad received a call from the owner of the driving company. He was going to meet us himself at the train station in Paris and help us safely get on our train. He also said we would never be able to make our train, so he went ahead and bought us new tickets for a later departure time. He was really nice and helpful and explained that there was a huge miscommunication in driving instructions. Well, it was a miscommunication that cost him a lot of money. Eurail tickets are not cheap!
Once we finally made it on The Chunnel, it was quite lovely, and I really enjoyed the whole experience.
So, we finally got to London!
But, it was too good to be true. Here's where crisis number two occurred. As we were walking out of the train station, I naturally wanted to start taking lots of pictures and realized I didn't have my camera. To make a long story short, I lost my camera on the train. They wouldn't let us back on the train, but they had someone else look for it. He said he couldn't find it, but I swear he didn't look hard enough! I almost started crying in the train station, but I refrained myself. I guess it's not the end of the world, because I had uploaded most of my pictures onto my computer already (The only important pictures I lost were from Versaille and my dad has all of those on his camera) and my dad had an extra camera I can use.
Other than all that, I have had the best day in London:
The hotel:
St. James Palace:
Buckingham Palace:
The wind is doing a little number on my hair.
St. James Park:
Oh, just napping in the park.
Dinner at Covent Gardens:
I begged requested that we eat dinner at Food For Thought, a vegetarian restaurant that Ann had recommended.
Um, how amazing does that sound? We all ordered it.
I loved the fruit infused water.
It was a very generous portion! I had trouble with shadows in the restaurant, so you can't even see the chickpeas on the other side. I also had a thick slice of whole wheat bread with my meal that I failed to take a picture of. I loved every single bite-I've been craving this kind of food all trip! Vegetarian meals have never done me wrong. In fact, they've been some of the best meals I've ever had!
Clearly, I hated it. I do hate olives though.
My dad thought it was just ok, but my mom loved it just as much as I did! We agreed that it was the most satisfying and nutritious meal we've had on our trip and said we could eat there every night we're in London. My dad said he needed some meat, but after he read that Rick Steves had recommended Food For Thought in his book, he said we could go back. Classic.
After dinner, we went back to the room and have just been laying low all night. After all of today's events, we were exhausted!
I'm looking forward to another day in London tomorrow!
Kristen!! That sounds very upsetting! I would have cried if I had lost my camera, so no worries:) Have a great time in London! Miss you:)
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