Hopefully the first of many posts about our trip to London

Why many? Because we were there 10 days and did lots of things, and also because I can only post in short bursts.

I've enjoyed traveling and have always wanted to go to England. Katie went to England for a high school band trip and I was glad she got to go, but I was also jealous. Last summer, Paul and his wife got to go, and I was happy for them, but also jealous. I told Jim after Paul's trip: "That's it. We're going to England because I can't continue to be jealous!"

We bought plane tickets over 6 months in advance, maybe even 8 or 9 months and then we waited. In early winter, we started planning where we wanted to go. We made a list of our HAVE TO SEE places and things and planned out our days. In April we bought tickets for trains and admissions.

And on May 18, we headed to the airport.

FINALLY ON THE PLANE TO LONDON!

We flew for 8 hours. The dinner on the flight was actually pretty good. I don't remember what it was, but I remember thinking it wasn't that bad. I watched a movie, read, and then tried to sleep when it started getting dark out. I didn't think I slept, but when I opened my eyes, it was already getting light out again (well, there was only a couple hours of darkness anyway, but I'm sure I wasn't awake for all of it). Jim said he didn't sleep at all. The breakfast that they served was gross. We finally landed about an hour after the breakfast was served.

It took about an hour? to get luggage and go through customs (which involved standing in a long line for Americans and Canadians and Brits. We walked up to a kiosk with face scanning tech and had our passports scanned and then our faces scanned. And then we were let through the "border." They didn't even stamp our passports! I guess Americans are sort of lumped in with Brits and allowed in with just a passing glance.

We hopped on the Heathrow Express from the airport to London, which took us directly to Paddington station. We dropped our luggage off at a luggage storage place and stepped out into actual London!

The first real sign that I was in London

We waited here for the Hop on/Hop off bus. Marble Arch at Hyde Park?

On the Hop on/Hop off bus! We stayed on. For a while we were the only ones on it. We were driven all over the place, and having no familiar reference points, we just kind of stared at everything. We had been mostly awake for a long time and were starting to get a little foggy from lack of sleep, but we pressed on. We were going to stay awake and power through the day!

First real recognition of a major landmark! Big Ben

Parliament!

The London Eye! We were going to be on that later in the trip!

Some sort of statue thing in the middle of the road!

The Tower Bridge!

After the bus tour, we stopped for lunch at the Dorchester (well, a patisserie/sandwich shop right next to it) and ate pastries and drank hot chocolate. Then we somehow got back to Paddington station and got our luggage and braved an underground train ride to our hotel. We rested for a bit (I think I fell asleep for an hour). Then we went to find some dinner.