Leaving London Behind... Scotland Bound!

(Written on way to Scotland, but posted a few days late.) 

 As I sit on the train speeding along the track away from London, it's impossible to not reflect on the amazing six days I spent there with my mom. London is a place I had always dreamt about seeing. From a young age I had a fascination with the monarchy, specifically the Tudors. How can you learn about the crazy things that happened in that time period and not be enthralled? 

London was everything I imagined and more. It's really the New York City of England. There are people everywhere and tourist attractions and public transport is crammed. This may have something to do with the time of the year that we came. I'd love to come back in the future during the winter when there aren't as many tourists and things are relatively more calm. It could be fun to see snow everyplace here too. Christmas and New Years in London? I could go for that... Maybe I've just watched "The Holiday" one too many times. One big difference between New York City and London that really stood out to me is that the people of London are very kind and helpful. My mom said it was like they were displaced Texans with their hospitality. One of our first days there, we had just exited the tube and we were standing outside the station looking helplessly at a map and a Londoner (?) stopped to ask us if we needed help finding or destination. If that'd happened in New York... God bless and good luck! Tourists that don't know where they are going and what they're doing are the real pain in the ass here. I feel bad for the people who have to deal with them all year, but then again tourism does bring a ridiculous amount of revenue into the country. I'd be interested as to just how much revenue tourism brings into the country annually. (If I remember, maybe I'll google this when I get internet access.)

We saw and did a lot during our time in London. Parts of it seem like such a blur, especially that first day when we arrived. We arrived to our hotel around 11am, and knowing that we needed to stay awake to adjust our sleeping schedules, we did a lot of walking around and exploring. The view we had from the top of the London Eye remains the most beautiful panoramic view of the city we had. We could see St. Paul's Cathedral and the Gherkin down the Thames and were right on top of Parliament and Big Ben (or at least it felt like it). 

Each night when we returned to the hotel we were exhausted, which means it was a successful day in my book! The last thing I wanted to do what spend half of my vacation inside the hotel surfing the internet. The internet is going to be there when I get back home. Vacation is a time to explore, not hole up and try to connect to the world back home. We're getting good use of our sneakers and by the time we get back home we may never want to look at the again with how much walking we've done in them. We really should have brought a pedometer over to see how much we walk each day. I'd guess it is upwards of three miles a day. Be time time we got back to the hotel each night we were moaning and groaning and trying to rub our poor little toes back to life. I wouldn't change a thing though, walking a lot just means we got to see a lot of the city... and only a small bit of this walking was more than necessary due to my mediocre navigating. 

It is hard to choose a favorite thing that we have done or seen so far... Every experience has been enjoyable and worthwhile. There isn't anything that I've just thought "oh my god, why did we do this?!". The most relaxed day we had was by far the day trip out to Hampton Court Palace. I enjoyed that so much. If I could just have a picnic lunch under that tree every day from today to forever, that'd be fantastic. 

More than anything, it was thrilling to be standing in the places that I'd read about in history classes and read about in books since childhood. I stood in the place where Anne Boleyn was beheaded, where King William and Mary reigned as the first Protestant king and queen, where Churchill planned the defense of the city while being bombed from overhead by German planes, and where work on Stonehenge began over 5,000 years ago. FIVE THOUSAND YEARS! Holy crap! It's really just mind boggling and makes you view America's brief history from a whole new perspective. 

Traveling with my mom has been great. We're great traveling companions because both of us are pretty laid back. We have an "itinerary," but it's more like a list of things that we could do each day if we wanted . And, both being pretty flexible, we don't get upset if something is missed. 

We're looking forward to our few days in Edinburgh. We're hoping that it is a little bit quieter and calmer there compared to London. Crossing our fingers for fewer tourists and more elbow room. I'll continue to post updates about our trip as I'm pretty sure we have internet at our Edinburgh hotel as well. 

Until next time! 

View from the train to Edinburgh.

View from the train to Edinburgh.