4 Days in London

It’s so funny because as I look at these pictures from our trip to Europe last month I realize that as much as I love, love, love to travel, I am honestly the biggest homebody!! I love the feeling of being at home. I definitely seem to pay my allegiance to wherever I am at the moment though. When we were in Europe I was like “WOW” I could live here! But as soon as I get back to Virginia I’m like, “I NEVER want to leave here!” I think out loud a lot so John Luke hears my internal battle playing out with this often haha.

I know its been a while since this trip, but I still wanted to share about it for my sake and yours! I love having my stories and photos documented in one place, and I also want to offer any tips or ideas for any of you who might be headed to London! It’s kind of funny, because we actually didn’t plan anything before time! We missed a few places that I would love to go back and see one day, but it was also nice because we were never super rushed and really got to enjoy exploring.

LONDON. Wow. What a place?!

My mother-in-law and father-in-law were going for a conference, so all of us just tagged along and ran around the city!

We took the train from Paris to London. I love trains in other countries- so convenient! It only took us 2 1/2 hours to get there, and I thought it was super cool that we went under the British Channel. The first day we got there it was raining and freezing. Coming from sunny Paris, it was quite the change! But that only lasted a day or two and then it was really nice outside! The first day we went to the Natural History Museum. It was a Saturday and it was PACKED (packed to the point that I was feeling claustrophobic and I have never considered myself a claustrophobic-feeling person). So if you’re ever there and considering it, take that into consideration. Honestly I was so exhausted from our time in Paris, I don’t remember the first day very well haha. We stayed at Hotel Xenia and ate at a yummy Thai place down the road. For whatever reason we ate Thai like 4 times while we were there! Everyone was craving it. OH and that was the night we went and saw Matilda!!! That was one of my absolute favorite things we did. I HIGHLY suggest seeing this show. I’m glad we saw it in London, because not only were the children adorable and extremely talented, their ACCENTS made it that much more fun! I could’ve listened to them for days!

The next day, Sunday, we went to church and that was another favorite memory from the trip. We went to Holy Trinity Brompton. Its a beautiful, old cathedral that has modern worship and church going on on Sundays. It was so special to get to worship with brothers and sisters in Christ from another part of the world. I got to learn a little about Alpha while we were there, are any of you familiar with that?! It sounds so neat!

Day 3 we started off the morning at the London Tower. It was super interesting and I’m glad we did the tour. The men who lead the tours actually live on the grounds and served in the military for a long time and I thought that was really neat. Afterwards we ate at a Dim Sum place. Honestly another favorite memory HA. Our entire table was covered with food that was stacked up too and we were laughing so hard because the food just kept coming!

We walked across Tower Bridge then went to the London Eye. We met a young couple from Germany trying to get rid of a coupon they had, it turned into a sweet 10 mins of talking with them and trying to figure it all out, but we ended up buying it and then bought a fast-pass lane- moral of this story: look at coupons before you go. But also- you can do a coupon and then do fast pass and although it evens out and you pay the normal price, you skip the line! When you only have a couple of days, every hour matters haha. From the top of the London Eye, we spotted this fun swing ride down below, so after a little ice cream, me and Bella went and rode it! So random, but it was so fun! Afterwards we walked across London Bridge and called it a day.

We had lunch the fourth day at Churchill Arms. It was BEAUTIFUL. The whole place is covered with flowers. I had just come across it on Pinterest, and it was my only request while we were in London. Under further investigation, we found out its not only a pub, but has a Thai place in the back!! What a gem of place it was! It was like a secret little garden restaurant in the back. GO. THERE.

It wasn’t far from Kensington Palace, so we walked there. We accidentally found ourselves in the middle of the nicest neighborhood I have ever seen. We were all laughing at how insane it was. Every car was like a Maserati or Bentley or Ferrari haha. We made it to Kensington Palace and walked through the garden and park that was around it. Afterwards we did a little shopping. I love to get a painting and an ornament everywhere we go. It’s fun to find local artists and I just really like art, and its also the sweetest thing when we hang ornaments at Christmas time and can remember and talk about trips and memories!! Ughhh my favorite- I totally recommend it (and fun fact: when we can’t find an ornament, we’ll just get a keychain and hang it haha). We shopped around the Covent Garden area and it was a neat spot. John Luke and I found a fun bookstore a few streets over and we went in a T.J. Maxx that was HUGE. When we were in there this family asked me to try on a coat for them because I was the size of their daughter who wasn’t there and it was the funniest thing. Their son asked me, but the parents didn’t speak English and just kept motioning me to spin around and critiquing the jacket…it went on for a comical amount of time haha. Oh and then I had to get my typical tourist picture with the red telephone booth!!

That night we had dinner at the house of John Luke’s parents’ friends from the conference who were pastors and it was such a sweet time getting to meet and know them. The next morning we headed to the airport. We flew back home with exhausted bodies but super full and grateful hearts for our time in London!