European Trip Day 1 - London

Hi Friends. . .well, we landed safely in London and on time too! Whoohoo! This is my very first trip to Europe so everything is new and different for me. For those who've been to Europe or live in Europe, you may think what I write may not be so interesting or fascinating. ..so bear with me! LOL!

An awesome thing happened on our way to London. . .British Airway bumped us up to Premiere seating . . .it's so much better than economy. Whoohoo. Our airplane seats were a bit wider and had their own foot rest. Furthermore, each individual video screen pulled up from the side of our arm rest. The 10 hour flight was bearable because it was a bit more comfortable and that really helped.

Above is a photo of the baggage claim area at Hearthrow Airport in London. The airport is designed sort of chic and modern with lots of metallic features as you can see in the photo. Very contemporary in design. I was impressed.

As we were being shuttled to our hotel entering the city, I really had a different "idea" of what London would look like. It's not as "cold" and "dreary" as I expected. I don't know. . .I guess all the movies I see of London is that it's dark and cold. . .I guess I see too many movies but in reality it was quite the opposite of what I expected. London looks very modern. . .and yes, although the city does lack a bit of color. . many of the buildings are grey or the color of red brick, many of the buildings are very contemporary. As we approached the outskirt of the city, it reminded me a bit of Virginia and the area surrounding Washington DC during the winter time.

We decided to eat lunch at a Thai restaurant after we dropped off our bags at our hotel room. It was the first restaurant that we came across after walking out of our hotel. First shocking thing. . .the food price, by American standards, is RIDICULOUSLY expensive. For a Thai lunch for 3 that would normally average $30 here in the US. . .it cost $65 in US dollars. Ugggh! I was sort of expecting something different as far as Thai cuisine. . .maybe a British flair, not so. . .it tastes exactly like the Thai food here in the US. LOL! I don't know why I would think it would taste different. . .Thai food is Thai food, right?

One thing I noticed here is the people dress far more nicely than we do here in the US. Nothing casual about how they dress here. On average most of everyone I saw were dressed in nice boots, nice coats, and nice slacks. I love the coats here. . .people were dressed nicely even at the local drug store and supermarket. Gosh, in my home town, I see people walking in with their sweat pants and some even in their pajamas and bunny house slippers. I don't think you'd see anything like that here in London but I may be wrong. . .being in the city and in the suburb are two different worlds so it's possible that people do wear bunny house slippers in the rural area of London. LOL! Who knows!

For dinner, we ate at an Italian restaurant and sat down for a while and drank coffee. While we were in the restaurant, it began to snow. It wasn't in the forecast so we didn't expect it but luckily I was seriously bundled up. It was beautiful. It really felt like the holidays. I heard on the news that it may snow up to 8 inch by tomorrow morning. Yikes! I hope it doesn't mess up our tour. . .we're going to go bus hopping and stop by different attractions around London tomorrow. Anyway. . the photo above is of me, my daughter and my husband. A gentlemen was kind enough to take our photo. We rarely ever have a chance to take photos together so it was wonderful to have a nice photo of us together on our first day in London.

I guess that's it for today's adventure. . .hopefully, I can take more photos tomorrow and have time to post a few of them. Anyway. . .I hope all of you are enjoying the holidays.