London

 

We set out on a big family adventure on May 25! Just over two weeks in Europe with four legs: London, Northern England, Loire Valley in France, and Paris. 

We landed exhausted in London and headed to our Airbnb right off Portobello Road. Unfortunately the key didn't work and we were locked out for about an hour. We were very tired, hungry, and hot. 

Eventually we got in to our Airbnb, we grabbed lunch, and then we set off for some Portobello Road exploring.

We had to stop by and visit 27 Palace Court, the BYU London Center, where I did my study abroad.

The best street in the city. :)

Morale was low after all that walking so we stopped for gelato.

We visited Kensington Gardens. Morale was very, very low at this point. Everyone was very hot and exhausted. I should have grabbed a picture of us all just laying on the grass for about an hour. Jet lag is rough.

Davis will always find sticks and birds.

One of our many bus rides. We used the tube a lot but road the bus a lot too. As you can see here, it was soooo hot when we were there. The high was like 88 every day, which is incredibly hot for London in May. And the buses definitely don't have AC.

We all felt much better on day 2 after a good night's rest. We headed to the Tower of London and started with a beefeater tour. 

It was fun to explore. But also, I realized I'd accidentally spent a fortune on third party tickets so I was stressed about that the whole time. (But--don't worry, I opened up dispute with our credit card company and got refunded!)

Classic Tower Bridge shot

We headed to Borough Market for lunch and tried a lot--burgers, fish and chips, strawberries, ice cream, two different brownies.

We went to St. Paul's for evensong. It was beautiful. My favorite part was making Max think he was going to have to sing with the choir.

We hung out in Covent Garden and watched a street performer.

These kids were troopers. Jet lag was a pretty big deal for a few days and they were really tired with a lot of walking. The kids could earn up to $5 per day of good traveler money. I think a good snapshot of how the trip was going is their good traveler money. For this day: Andy: $2, Max $2, Violet $5, Davis $1. So yes, the first couple of days were tough--lots of whining, complaining, etc. I don't think we realized how jet lagged they were. (Also, Violet got $5 basically every day of the trip and the boys really couldn't stand that, haha.)

Day 3! We started off with a visit to Buckingham Palace. Turns out the streets in front were closed off because they were practicing for the king's birthday celebration. So kind of sad, but also, very cool because we got to see all these soldiers and horses do a ceremonial march.

Big Ben shot

We didn't go inside Westminster Abbey but we grabbed a quick pic and walked around it.

Our friend Candace Allen told us about a yummy street market on Strutton Ground so we headed there for lunch. Cameron, Max, and I got Mediterranean street food, which was delicious. The other three got grocery store sandwiches, which began the trend of daily grocery store sandwiches for the kids (cheap, and the kids like them).

A visit to platform 9 3/4. 

And a visit to the Harry Potter store.

We headed out of the city for a tour of the Tottenham Stadium. This ended up being a major highlight, especially for Andy and Max. (Max really wanted to tour the Man City stadium, but it was closed while we were there. So this was next best.)

The stadium was actually incredible. It's very new and very, very nice. I've never been in such a nice stadium.

We grabbed some bread and cheese and ate dinner at Covent Garden while watching the same street performer we'd watched the night before.

We went to Lion King and it was incredible! 

Favorite Davis quotes from the play: "I think they worked really hard on this play, right?" "My favorite part was when the dad died...(leans in and whispers) I just like violent things."

By day 4, jet lag was feeling much better and it wasn't feeling like this trip was a giant mistake lol.

We headed to the natural history museum.

Max and Davis wore their new Tottenham jerseys they'd gotten at the Tottenham Stadium store.

Violet really wanted to go to the Jellycat store, so we headed to Selfridge's for their Jellycat store. Violet bought this cute bunny with her travel money, which she says she doesn't want to name. 

We visited the National Gallery

The family wasn't as impressed as I wanted them to be by the National Gallery haha.

Just a great shot of Andy on the tube with some new friends.

Davis was always filthy. He would touch everything in the tube, which really grossed me out, and then would touch his face.

Max and I had a little Portobello Road date. He was on the hung for a Man City mini soccer ball, which he quickly realized was out of his budget.

I didn't take a picture of it, but Cameron and I ended up doing a date night that night. The kids stayed in the airbnb and had dinner while we went to an Italian restaurant around the corner. (The food was good, except for an awful bruschetta which ended up being a really gross shrimp dish.)

Our airbnb ended up being so cute. I should have taken inside pictures. It was great, aside from the fact that it didn't have AC and there was a heat wave while we were there. The kids were upstairs and it was SO hot, despite windows being open and using every fan we could find. Farewell London!