Back in London….Again

The day started early with a 4:45am wake up call to get our 5:30am Uber to the Caen Central Station. We had an uneventful 2-hour ride back to Paris and a 15-minute taxi ride from Gare St. Lazare to Gare du Nord for our Eurostar train to London. They have that process down to an art form. We went through immigrations to leave France and after walking about 15 feet, we went through immigrations to enter the UK. Then it was security and boarding our train for the 2 1/2hour ride to London.

The train traveled at about 135 MPH, so we made great time to the Dover Strait where we entered the Chunnel. In only about 20 minutes, we come out the other end in England. After that it was only about another 30 or so minutes before we pulled in the St. Pancras station in London. What an easy way to get here from London, so much easier than a flight.

The girls were excited about the cool London cabs and driving on the “wrong” side of the road.

The 2-bedroom Airbnb flat that I booked in January canceled about 6 weeks ago and I couldn’t find anything else that was reasonable priced in central London. After quite a bit of searching for hotels, I found that the Doubletree in Kensington had double rooms so that’s what I booked. We put in for a discounted upgrade to a suite, but unfortunately, none were available. After we got settled into our room, Christina told me she very nervous about 4 of us squeezed a double room. It was a decent sized room, but certainly not as roomy as the flats we’ve been staying in or the family suite we had in Brussels. So, after a bit of discussion, we ended up getting me a separate single room (king bed) while they stayed in the double room.

Once we got the room situation straightened out and had a bit to eat (nothing exciting… burgers for the girls, chicken BLT for Christina and a steak sandwich for me) we headed to the Tube and the British Museum.

The main thing we wanted to see in the museum was the Rosetta Stone. The stone was created in 196 BC and discovered in 1799. It is what scholars used to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics.

While I was looking at the stone, I had an “it’s a small world moment”. I glanced at the man next to me and realized I was standing next to one of my neighbors from Robson Ranch. He looked at me and said, “I know you.” Arnold and his son were in London for the Mets/Phillies baseball game that was played this weekend and just happened to be in the exact same spot at the exact same time. Very cool.

After that close encounter, the girls and I wandered through a few rooms of the museum looking at Egyptian and Greek artifacts. Each room had a scavenger hunt that Christina did with the girls. Once again, a very cool way to engage an 8-year-old in what could otherwise be a boring museum. Nora was actually disappointed when we said we had to leave as the museum was closing in 15 minutes. We got there late so we only had about 45 minutes. She’s going to look at the website to see if there’s anything else she wants to see. I’m not sure we’ll have time, but I’ll try to squeeze in another visit if she finds something exciting.

Once out of the museum, Drew decided she needed to make a call from a real live phone booth.

On our way home, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up dinner. This is the first time we haven’t had a kitchen or fridge, so we’ll have to figure out how to get our dinner. We have complimentary breakfast, and we’ll have lunch out, but we certainly don’t need two big meals every day, so we’ll probably just pick up sandwiches or something light on our way back to the hotel. We’ll figure something out.

That was our day; relatively easy but I still had over 11000 steps so I’m a bit tired. I’m hoping for a good night’s sleep after a week of bunking in a queen-sized bed with a wiggly 8-year-old with very sharp elbows. Maybe getting separate rooms was a smart idea after all.