The First Full Day

After a 25 hour travel day (see adorable sign made by Aunt Emily), we begin our first full day in London.

Up first, a walk around Emily's work neighborhood.

Through a friend of a friend, Emily hooked us up with a private tour of Westminster Abbey, done by a great tour guide who coordinates school tours.  She was amazing, with pictures, lots of great stories and very kid friendly, as well as access to some of the roped off areas of the Abbey. 

John's favorite part of the day was the huge Pikachu in Trafalgar Square.  Yes, all the way to London, seeing many great things about history and this was his favorite part of the day.

After lunch at Pret, and a stop at Watts & Co for Matt's clergy shirts, we headed down to the London Eye.  When were were least here in 1999, they were just building this.  Now, 18 years later, it offers full city views from a glass bubble ferris wheel. 

After the London Eye, we go to one of Emily's recommended spots and have one of Emily's recommended drinks, a Pimms.  And it was delicious. 

After a bus ride back up to Euston, we enjoy a brief walk through the British Library, a pint at the Euston Flyer pub and dinner at Pizza Express.  A full day!

The 25 hour day

It was a long day of travel, but after 25 hours, we made it to our hotel in London.  We left Quincy at 8:00 am on Wednesday, June 26th....

Drove to San Francisco and had some time to waste in the airport (a few rounds of Exploding Kittens)...

 A red eye flight to London with intermittent sleep on the plane....

and landed in London at 3:00 London time, Thursday, June 27th.

After clearing immigration and customs, Emily was there to meet us (with a very cute handmade sign), and a tube ride to our hotel near Kings Cross.  We had enough energy to try and stay awake and get on London time and went to dinner at Wagamama, a favorite of mine from when we studied abroad.  Only now, they are all over London. 

Finally, we slept, most of the night, until the alarm went off at 7:30 am.  Yep, trying to get use to London time, but that was about 12:30 am Quincy time.

The Media

Luggage is packed in two large rolling duffles.  My thinking is that Matt and I can each pull a wheeled duffle and each hold onto a kid.  We also each have backpacks to hold our assorted media and entertainment for the long flight.

The kids are using their Kindles that are a couple of years old, but work great.  Using AmazonFreeTime, the kids have access to many books, apps, games and videos, all through their own Kindle.

But the best thing is the public library.  Now, I went in yesterday to clear our fines, and I won't say what our total was, but at $.10 a day, I can't believe they got that high.  With cleared library cards, we could access all of the digital content through the public library.

If you haven't tried this, you should!  Through the public library, and with a couple of clicks with your library card, you get to an app called Overdrive.  From here, you have access to thousands of books delivered right to your device, for free!  Some of the most popular ones you may have to waitlist for, but still.

What are we reading?  I digitally checked out Lady Catherine, the Earl and the Real Downtown Abby.  I thought this would be fun since we are hoping to make it to Downton Abbey on our trip. Amazon Prime also let's you check out one book per month, and I checked out The Handmaids Tale. I started this series on Hulu on the recommendation from a friend- a bit disturbing but I think it can be a good read.

For the kids, I'm hoping to get one started on Harry Potter, and the other is looking forward to reading The Strange Case of Origami Yoda.  Thank you to our lovely public librarian for the recommendation.  We are also continuing the Sisters Grimm series and have two of those books packed.

One of the best things about the public library is the magazines!  Did you know you can check out digital copies of many current and popular magazines.  Through the Zinio app, I am cued up with Better Homes and Gardens, Oprah and the Wine Enthusiast among a few other (Lifestyle to keep up with celebrity gossip).

Matt has a number of shows cued up to watch through Amazon Prime: 3 seasons of Catastrophe, 2 seasons of Man in the High Castle and 1 season of Bosch.  And because we're going to England, Patriot Games and Becket.  Books on Matt's list: The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (by the Dalai Lama), Thomas Beckett: Warrior, Priest, Rebel (by John Guy) and Sidney Chabers and The Shadow of Death (by James Runcie).

I said to someone earlier today we've got enough media to go on this trip and do nothing else!  But at least we'll have options and choices throughout the trip.

(And for those of you that think we do too much digital, we have markers, pencils, crayons and activity books in the kids backpacks.  One even brought a notebook to keep as her "field journal," extending a regular practice of the school year.)

The Packing

Ugh.  Packing for a trip like this.  We'll be gone 15 days and moving around a lot.  So we need to pack light, which is something none of us Warrens do well.

And then there's the weather.  London, in the summer: cold and rainy.

Compared to what we have in Quincy now, a major heat wave, I'm looking forward to the cooler temps.  The above is for the weather in London, so it'll be about 10 degrees cooler for our time up in Scotland.

So, the packing was really stressing me out.  Until I saw this:

http://www.suitcaseandheels.com/what-to-pack-for-london-in-the-spring/

This made sense to me.  And while I may sneak in 7 shirts instead of 5, this is doable.

And it works for the kids too.  The kids and I have our clothes set out, ready to go into the suitcase. Let's see how Matt does...

The Itinerary

Matt has been the travel agent for our trip.  I now loosely what we are doing, but he's done all the planning and made the reservations.  And, if you know us, of course there's a spreadsheet.

Some of this is tentative, some of this will change, but looks like it's going to be a great trip!


Last night, we wanted to show the kids some of the things we'll be doing.  We watched some YouTube videos to help get them excited:

And don't forget about Scotland:

The Why

London Calling!

This trip has been several years in the making.  If you'd like to follow along with us on our trip, check out this blog!  We'll update as often as we can.  In addition to sharing information with our friends and family back home, I thought it would turn into a great momento once we're home.

First off, why London?

Two reasons.  First off is Matt's youngest sister, Emily, who lives in London and has been living there for, er, maybe 8 year.  Has it really been that long?  When Em first moved to London, we thought it was just for grad school and she'd return home, most likely back to somewhere in California.  She would come back to the states to visit and we didn't think about going there because, ya know, she was there temporarily.  Well, we eventually realized that it may not actually be temporary.  And as much as we still hope she'll return to California, she seems quite happy in London and is doing very well.  So, our turn to go visit.

But, then we had kids.  And although I know some people do it very successfully, international travel with young kids, it wasn't something I was into.  We were deep into Disney (still are), and didn't think the expense seemed like so much for something the kids most likely wouldn't remember.  So, several years ago, doing the math, we thought when they were 7 and 9, we would go.  And now, here we are!

The second reason, while juniors at Occidental, Matt and I were lucky enough to spend the fall semester of our junior year studying abroad in London at University College London.  That was the fall of 1999.  Napster was the coolest thing to come out and London was busy prepping for Y2K. Matt and I were 20, enjoying the lower drinking age in England, studying (some) and having a good time.  Looking back, we thought we'd get back to London every few years or so.  But, life happens and every few years turned into 18 years.

I dug out some old pictures, (back when we had negatives and actually printed them out), and found these gems:

So, here we are, in front of Buckingham Palace.  Notice Matt's haircut.  How that happened is a story for another blog post.

Made it to Stonehenge.

Matt at St. Andrew's in Scotland.  He got on the old course and played that day.  He's hoping to do the same this trip.  He didn't make the lottery for a tee time, but is hoping for one of the coveted, but limited, walk up day of tee times.

Matt's parents came to visit.  And yeah, that's Matt, and his dad.  Great hat, right?  I think it was the "Joey" hat (Friends reference).

My parents came to visit as well.  We were lucky enough to score these jumper seats on one of our train rides, as all the others were taken.  We're hoping for reserved seats this time.

And here's young Emily.  Truly young Emily.  I think her and Matt were getting off of some reality type car ride.

That's all for now.  Back to the packing and to do list before we leave.