‘Ello from London, England!
The city stands along the Thames River, and is the capital of England and the UK. Home to Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and the London Eye. I’m excited to sit around and just listen to everyone talk. The English accent is one of my favorites.
How Did We Get To London?
We finally made it! We took 3 different trains to get here. (TER 96562, TGV 9867, ES 9153). And since we decided to train it, not plane it, we got to go through the chunnel! Let me tell you. Did I freak out. I have a lot of anxiety while traveling. Funny that I chose this lifestyle eh?
I was all good up until we had to take an escalator down from the ground floor of the Lille Europe train station. It felt like we entered a basement. Cool (which felt nice given the humidity outside), damp, dark. It felt ominous. I was excited for this train because we had booked 1st class tickets, and that meant I was getting fed. I tried tampering down my anxiety by daydreaming about food. And wine. Totally normal coping mechanisms.
We boarded the train and found our seats. The first few minutes were nice. The train was cushy and a smooth ride. And then everything got dark. There are lights inside the cabin so it’s not totally lights out. Our ears popped a lot. And I instantly felt panic. I am very claustrophobic, and always picture the absolute worst thing that could happen in any situation. Thankfully right as I was about to start rocking back and forth, they brought our food. I focused my energy on savoring every bite. Seth has been helping me with my anxiety for a very long time. He knows all the ways to distract me to help get through the moment. We played card games, he gave me surprise snacks, and another little bottle of wine.
Next thing I knew there was LIGHT! LAND! I was so happy. The train ride is definitely a cool experience, when I look back on it.
Arriving in London, England
We arrived at London St. Pancras station. Wow. What a beautiful station! As soon as you exit the station, you know where you are. Little black cabs (called hackneys) whizzed by, double decker buses going around the roundabouts. It was just like I’ve seen in the movies.
Driving on the other side in England
This was the first country on our trip that we were renting a car! Starting the driving experience off with a bang by driving on the opposite side of the street. We got ourselves a BMW 3 series to explore the streets of London, England. How strange it is to have the steering wheel on the other side. I went ahead and let Seth figure out how to drive this thing while I held on for dear life.
Notting Hill, London
We made our way to Notting Hill where we booked our hotel. The Notting Hill Hotel to be exact. Yes, we booked it there because of the movie, and yes, it does look exactly like the movies! Such a cute town. We also booked here because London is very pricey and we were on a strict budget for this trip.
Checking in, I realized this must be a very old building. It smelled old, but it was still clean. The inside is very small and dated, but cute and whimsical in its charm. We were told that our room was on the very top floor, and it was either take the stairs, or the “lift”.
We opted for the lift due to our oversized, thousand pound backpacks. Once we saw the “lift”, I almost turned around and went for the stairs. It was about the size of a coffin. With a rickety old gate, and only one of us fit at a time. Seth squeezed in first and off he went. I chewed off every single one of my nails in the 3 minutes I waited for it.
Let me reiterate how claustrophobic I am. But Seth went up, and he made it out alive. I will be fine. Once in said coffin, I couldn’t move an inch. It was slow, and shaky, and once almost to the top it just stopped. Abruptly. I couldn’t get the gate to open, and even if I did, it was just a wall. I thought that this was it. This is the end. Goodbye cruel world. After what felt like minutes, it jerked forward and continued on its way. As soon as I got out of there, I fell to the ground and cried. Seth was so baffled. What had happened in the last 1.5 minutes!? But hey. I made it. I’m still here.
This is Fine.
We couldn’t help but laugh when we got to our room. It was a very small room, with a bed. The end. You took one step inside and you were already up against the bed. Our backpacks took up the only space left in the room. And wait. Where’s the bathroom? Our bathroom was located in the hallway. It was our own “private” bathroom, but also located right in front of the stairs and the lift. I think this hotel was built for the Lilliputians. Neither of us fit in the shower. It was so narrow. The toilet was so low to the ground and so small. I still fall into fits of laughter when I picture us in there.
Stonehenge
The next day we woke up early and started on our road trip to Stonehenge! It is a 1 hour 45 minute drive from London, but it took us closer to 3 hours because we stopped a few times for coffee and food. We got a lot more comfortable driving on the opposite side of the road. This was a beautiful drive. Everything is so green! It was a warm and sunny day, perfect for exploring some old ass rocks.
When we arrived, we bought our tickets and waited for the next bus that would take us to the stones. You can walk over, but it was hot, humid, and we had been walking all day every day for the last 2 weeks. We’ll wait for the bus thanks. We all packed into the bus and it took about 5 minutes to get to the stones. Once there you walk along a path that takes you around the stones. The structure is just out in the middle of a field. Large and in charge. Simply glorious.
Watch Out for the Bugs
We had noticed some little flying bugs while waiting for the bus, but once we got in front of the stones, it was like we were under attack. These little bugs were flying everywhere, landing all over us, and they were biting. We tried to shoo them away and flick them off each other as much as we could, but after about 10 minutes we couldn’t take it anymore. We snapped a couple pictures and literally ran back to the bus.
Once on the bus, we realized these bugs were crawling all over EVERYONE. They were going down the back of some guy’s shirt who was sitting right in front of me, they were in peoples hair and all over their bodies. Me and Seth are not bug people. Nope. We ran back to our car and ripped off all of our clothes, right in the middle of the parking lot. We poured water bottles all over ourselves hoping to wash them all away. Our arms and legs were covered in tiny little bites. We were over it. So,
We b-lined it back to our hotel in desperate need of a shower. Unfortunately, the shower in this hotel was literally the worst. There was zero water pressure, and the water wouldn’t get warm. I am one of those people that needs a scalding hot shower in order to feel clean. Burn off a few layers of skin to get rid of all the germs. Pouring a water bottle over myself was a better shower than this.
Eat Like a Local in London, England
Now what better way to save the day than getting some food! We are in London, England, so obviously we must order fish and chips. It was late and we were so tired that we decided to use Uber Eats. Moments later our food arrived. We opened our bag to find one giant piece of fried fish. It was huge. Pretty much a whole fish. With one little lemon slice. Where are the chips?! How can they call this fish and chips if there are no chips?! Being from the US, fried fish is usually/always accompanied with tartar sauce. This came with nothing. Nothing at all. Thankfully, Seth has a serious addiction to hot sauce, Tapatio to be exact, so he had stocked every pocket of every backpack with packets of hot sauce. This saved it. Kind of.
After this day, we were ready to get out of there.
Hyde Park
Our train wasn’t leaving until the afternoon, so we decided to stop at Hyde Park located in the heart of London, England. before we left. This is a beautiful park. Lots of art, statues, ponds, and trails. It used to be a royal hunting perserve, and is now home to “Speakers Corner”, where free speech, demonstrations, and debates have been practiced since 1872. Today there was not much going on, and was a very quiet day at the park.
Getting Out of London, England
Here is where we were met with the first “hiccup” of our trip. Seth is very meticulous in his planning. Spreadsheets and lists galore. We had purchased all of our train tickets and accommodations about two months prior to leaving. We were constantly checking for updates, making sure every train ticket was in order, everything aligning as it should be.
When we arrived at the train station, we could not locate our tickets. We used Eurail passes for this entire trip. Somewhere in the fine print, the tickets we had purchased said that they were going to be MAILED to us. Back in the US. No way to get our hands on them here in London, England. No email or digital copies could be sent. Panic ensued. All of the trains out of here were SO expensive. We started looking at flights, but they proved to be about the same super expensive price, and we would have to make our way to the airport, which was also no cheap endeavor. There were slightly cheaper train tickets the following day, but we were so over being here, and we did not want to lose out on our next stay. So almost $600 later, we were getting the hell outta dodge.
Will we have a better shower in the next country? Follow along as we explore Amsterdam..
