Big Adventure - Belgium, Day 6

Thursday, May 5, 2011

First day of Vacation! After Belgium, I had made arrangements with one of the girls at my office, Michele, to spend a little extra time in Europe. I have known Michele for a few years but I really didn't know her that well. I was looking forward to getting to know her and was so happy to have found someone to travel with me. We took a taxi to the Brussels airport to catch our 12:10 flight on British Airways. Our taxi was late because of traffic and we got caught in it on the way there during morning rush hour. During our ride we talked about the last three days and about some work stuff trying to pass the time. Our flight to London was about an hour long and involved us going back through customs. I got a stamp in my passport when I left Brussels and a new one in London when we arrived. We arrived at the London Heathrow airport about 12:10. London is an hour behind Belgium so we left and arrived at the same time. We were still screwed up on time so I didn't even notice the extra hour. The London airport was huge but we found our way to the Express Train on the lower level.

 The Express Train was very comfortable and took us Paddington Station where we needed to switch trains to the Underground to go to Westminster Station near our hotel. We were both so hungry by the time we got to Paddington Station but none of the food options looked appetizing so we just kept moving. The station was really crowded which made traveling with luggage a bit of a challenge. To make it worse, we had to cross over the track we were going on to get to the right side of the platform and there were no elevators. I managed with my luggage but Michele’s suitcase was really big and heavy. There was no way she could get it up the stairs so thank goodness some random guy helped her. Just when we thought it was over it turned out that once we went up the stairs we had to go down them too. Michele was approaching the 'over-it' phase so she just bounced her bag down the stairs one at a time until she got to the bottom. I am sure someone watching us found the whole thing quite amusing but at the time we were not laughing. (Well, at least one of us... )

We finally made it to the train and boarded with a big sigh. It reminded me of a scene from Seinfeld when the whole group was on the subway. As we were riding Michele noticed that she had a hole in the bottom of her big piece of luggage. Nothing had fallen out but it wasn’t going to make it on a plane again with out some attention. Luckily, the train stop at Westminster had elevators. It was just as hard to walk through because of how busy it was but we managed. As we exited the station to get to the street we parked our bags on the sidewalk and a just rested for a moment while we got our barrings. We both looked to the sky at the same time to see the golden face of Big Ben. Bam! It was right there! Welcome to London! It is a moment that I won't forget. We were so crazed with the luggage and train situation to suddenly be greeted with one of the most recognizable buildings in the world was a shocking moment.

Big Ben

We needed to find our hotel and with all our bags we knew we needed a taxi. Every one of them only took cash. We had just gotten into the country and hadn’t have time to exchange our dollars for pounds. I got my iPhone out and looked at where we were and it turned out we were 5 blocks from the hotel so we walked-bags in hand, advertising to the world that we were tourist! 

Mint Hotel

We were tired, hungry, and grumpy by the time we checked in. Not a good combination to test our patience at the front desk. We got the key to the room and went upstairs to see how we did booking online. The room was small but clean. It looked like a super nice Ikea dorm room. The bed appeared to be a king bed so we went back down to the front desk to be reassigned. It turned out that they just push together two twin beds. Housekeeping came to the room and unzipped the twins and remade the beds-viola! The room had an Apple computer in it that served as a TV and computer. I also had free Wi-Fi for my iPad--loved that! We went right to the hotel lounge and got food. Michele got the fish and chips she had been talking about for hours and I got a burger. Once we were hydrated and full we both felt so much better. We were both in disbelief that we were in London. It was "surreal but nice..."

It was too late to go to any of the attractions so our first evening we decided to go to the famous Harrod's Department Store. We were finally able to exchange some money at the front desk for our taxi fair. It was an incredibly heartbreaking experience with the exchange rate. Our taxi ride was about 15 minutes and drove us right by Buckingham Palace on the way to the Kensington area. We couldn't believe how close the palace was to the street. The store was amazing. It was five stories tall with a different department on each floor. We spent a lot of time on the toy, pet, candy, kitchenware floors and the Harrod's Brand area. It was so crowded but so exciting. We both went a little crazy with shopping but Michele got several gifts including a barbie-like doll of Princess Catherine for her mom. We must have been there for hours just wandering around. It was the perfect first evening activity. We returned to the hotel and just got appetizers for dinner. It gave Michele and I a chance to talk and plan the next few days. By the time we got back to the room we were both exhausted and called it a night.