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Published: September 30th 2012
About 24 hours ago we began our journey from ATX to London, UK. Whirlwind is in no way an adequate a word to describe our travel day. We woke at 6ish-7ish, as usual, and spent all Saturday morning prepping the house and pets for our time away (of course Moose decided NOW was a great time to start vomiting again--but that's another story), as well as packing and dealing with whatever came up--and also dealing with Phoenix, of course, who knows we are going to London...but what does that really mean to a two year old? Apparently not much, since he's been telling me since naptime today that he wants "to go home!" He doesn’t seem to grasp that we just got HERE AND HOW MUCH OF A BIG DEAL GETTING HERE IS.
While our day was blissfully uneventful, we still traveled about 5000 miles with a toddler, crossed numerous time zones, with all adults sleeping a combined 45 min (Phoenix managed about 5 hours sleep on the flight), changed approximately 2 diapers (that 2nd one was a whopper), had Phoenix only call the flight attendant for help once (from the lavatory!), lost only one set of rain boots (yes,
Me and Phee
On the underground, above ground for a second.the skull ones!), manages to save Timbuktu from exile aboard United Airlines cross Atlantic flights, took the "tube" with several connections (along with 4 bags, a car seat, and a 30 pound two year old), to emerge from the underground only a few steps from our London hotel and Hyde Park.
After checking in and dropping our gear, we headed out into the Mayfair neighborhood in the City of Westminster (yes, London), onto Bond Street and surrounding side streets to find lunch. We found a fabulous (and super, kid-friendly) spot for lunch, called Ask. Ask is a down home Italian place that feels contemporary and fresh. We had delicious food and wine (Nebbiolo!)--the rosemary-sea salt bread with olive oil, and the butternut squash and Parmesan soup are delicious! Then, we headed back to our hotel for naptime. Phoenix slept for a solid two hours! I, however, did not!
At 430 pm London time, we woke Phoenix, bundled him up in some warm clothes (it's actually Autumn here!) and headed across the street to Hyde Park (the original one) for some fun time running in a wide-open green space. The sycamore trees in Hyde Park are tremendous, huge and
Me and Phee
On the tube from Heathrow to Park Marble Arch. lovely, almost unimaginable. Speakers Corner featured several very vocal males enlightening the passing park goers about whatever particular faith or freedom from hell the speaker felt/believed they knew best. Phoenix chased pigeons (I can only keep singing songs from Mary Poppins) and delighted in the variety of sticks, leaves and fountains.
After a long two hour trek around Hyde Park and the Bond Street area, we grabbed some simple dinner items from Pret A Manger and came back to our room to eat, do bath time and bed time, and plan tomorrow's adventures--which I think include Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace (and I don't care if that makes me a cheesy tourist--we are going!).
More to come soon! Pictures, too. I'm just too exhausted to be creative--and I am sure this post has too many errors as is (but I can't see straight, so all apologies).
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Tracy
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Horse Head!
We have that exact same picture of the strange horse head sculpture from our trek down to Hyde Park! SO funny to think that we were in the same place, coming from thousands of miles away, in the space of a couple months. :)