Day 1…Year 14

We successful faught through jetleg until now (8PM local time)!

Our flights were smooth and on time, but meal service out of BOS took quite some time to wrap up, only really giving us at best two hours of sleep on the flight (we were hoping for 4-6HRs). Here’s a picture of our personalized meals (Don’t worry…we removed the Key Lime Pie for Bryan). He enjoyed chicken with rice and veggies while I decided to try the Sheppard’s Pie. Both were fairly good for a quick airplane meal.

Bryan and I were excited to have a full day to leasierly explore London…we knew arriving at 8:05AM may have some consequences, but we still made it to tour Westminster Abbey and wonder through several other London sights. In addition to it being our first full day in London, today is our “dating anniversary” – hard to believe it was 14 years ago, already! We’ve really been fortunate to make a lot of great memories over what is starting to approach half of our lifetime!

Before touring Westminster we simply took the Tube from LHR to our hotel in East London and also scoped out St Pancras International to purchase a few train tickets we needed for this coming weekend. I still think one of my favorite parts of this city is the mix of historic and modern all together…incredible to see!

After picking up our tickets it was off to grab the token fish & chips for lunch since it’s Bryan’s first time here. Had to welcome him properly 🙂

From here, it was a spectacular tour of Westminster Abbey. I still just love the intricate ceiling and gorgeous stain glass specifically in Henry VII’s Lady Chapel (you’ll have to Google search this one, as no photos are allowed in Westminster Abbey (Only permitted on some of the garden areas and other common spaces on the grounds). Following our tour we were able to witness an afternoon concert in the garden area. Simply charming with a great view of one of the towers from the House of Parliment plus a nice tree to sit under for some extra shade.

(more pics to come later)

…we also spotted the perfect book for me in the gift shop (How to be [a] Brit) 🙂

Following our visit to Westminster Abbey, we grabbed a cup of coffee to keep us going and made it to some of the following sights – some very touristy, others quite charming: House of Parliment (Big Ben), Traflager Square, National (Art) Gallery, Carnaby Steet, Piccadilly Circus, explored Liberty (woah, my head is still trying to process everything sold at this amazing department store…fabric, flowers, housewares, etc.) and even found a cool all-in-one venue for movies/restaurants/bar/Roof Top Terrance (check out some of these candy options sold here)!!
After waking nearly 15 miles today on about 2 hours of sleep, we opted for a meal at a busy pub around the corner from our hotel called Marques Cornwallis. I decided to try a chicken schnitzel meal (had to try a few of my fries dipped in mayo as served here; but, couldn’t make a big dent after having fish & chips for lunch). Turned out to be a lovely compliment to my pint of cider. Bryan had sausage and mash with a hoppy lager to wrap up the day before we unwind for the night.