ENGLAND TRIP : Day 1 + Travel Days

My dreams have finally come true. I've gone to ENGLAND! When I was younger I became so fascinated with England. I loved the people, the culture, the landscapes, and mostly the history. I remember watching one of the Harry Potter movies and just falling in love with the country and homes that it showed in the background. It's only in short parts of the movies, but I was so in love with seeing the backdrop of the films when they were in London and around Harry's house. I think that may be where my interest was first sparked, but it only got worse (or better?) from there. I began to immerse myself in googling photos of England and knew I HAD to go there. It was like I was homesick for a place I'd never even been to! I have English and Scottish blood from both sides of my family so I felt a strong pull there. Then I began to learn about the rich history of the UK and my obsession grew even deeper. Ask anyone who knows me well and they will tell you that it has been my dream for so long to go to England and now I can say that I finally have!! I told Trevor that after our sealing, wedding, and birth of our girls this trip to England comes next in the best moments of my life! I’ve dreamt about this for so long! I'm going to write down every detail I can remember so be prepared for this to be a long one!

We bought the tickets in July of 2018. The months seemed to crawl by, however, the day before we were supposed to leave it seemed like they flew! I planned and researched and planned and researched some more. I wanted to feel prepared and I'm so glad I did. Here is a link to my google docs for my trip. (England Trip Google Docs). I don't like to brag but I'm pretty proud of my itinerary! Ha! I worked so hard on it! I'm talking about color coordination and everything. If it looks funny its because I formatted it to look good on a phone since that's what I'd be viewing it on. It's kind of ridiculous, but I put a lot of time and work into it. We didn't follow my itinerary 100% and I was prepared for that so I made sure to do the things I really wanted to do at the beginning of our day. I wanted to be over prepared rather than under prepared. I packed a lot into my itinerary and it probably seemed like it would be unrealistic, but we actually did most of the stuff on my list! Gosh, I could write a whole post about my planning and itinerary so I'll just stop it here.

The first leg of our journey was to drive down to Los Angeles, but first, we had to stop by in St. George and drop off the girls at my parent's house. Believe me, I was so excited to start my journey and go to England, but I was so depressed thinking about dropping the girls off for 10 days. The longest I had been away from them was 3 days when Trevor graduated from BMT and that was only once! I knew they would be perfectly fine with my parents so I wasn't worried about them, but I was just so sad to think I wouldn't be able to hold them for so long! As we drove down to St. George we listened to The Greatest Showman and it was making me so emotional to hear Emma's sweet voice singing the songs. By the time we got to my parent's, I was holding back the tears. I finally went into the bathroom and completely broke down. I was so sad! You would never have thought I was going on my dream trip! Thankfully my parents came to the rescue and comforted and reassured me. I just didn't want to say goodbye, but the time came and it was a long one. Finally driving away I broke down again. I missed my girls already!

Off on our adventure!

A few miles down the road I regained my composure and the excitement hit! We drove to Los Angeles and we only listened to songs made by British artists! Mostly The Beatles, of course. We stayed the night with Trevor's Grandma Pam and her sister Linda. We love them! They were so fun to talk to! They showed us a bunch of old photos of their family who are from Lebanon! It was so cool and interesting to see. I was too excited to sleep that night. I couldn't believe I'd be flying to England tomorrow!

The next morning we got up and got ready and then took Trevor's grandma and aunt to breakfast. I'm a nervous traveler so I couldn't eat much. Then Trevor's grandma dropped us off at the Metro station. We took the Metro to the LAX stop and then took a bus to our terminal. We arrived an hour before we were allowed to go through security so we got some lunch and now that we were at the airport, I could happily eat. We also changed some money over to pounds. So expensive. We asked for £100 and it cost us $160. Yeesh. It was exciting to hold some pounds, though.

Eating and waiting at the airport!

English pounds! Hello Queen Elizabeth II.

After eating we went through security and we came at the right time because there were hardly any people there. We found our gate and waited for the next 4 hours! So early... Better safe than sorry, I guess! Time didn't go by that slowly so it wasn't all that bad. Finally, we got to get on the plane! We found our seats which I had chosen so they were at the front and we had so much leg room! Nobody showed up in the next seat so we had the row to ourselves. Awesome! Then we took off! We flew with Norwegian and I definitely think I will fly with them again! Well.. See ya America! Flying usually only scares me a little at the beginning but other than that I'm a good flyer. Although flying over the ocean creeped me out a bit. Thankfully the flight went by faster than I expected! It was over 10 hours but it really didn't seem that long, although Trevor and I only got an hour of sleep. I can't sleep well in general so sleeping on a plane was out of the question, but not for lack of trying! 

Here we go!

Don't you have the urge to dive into that? 

The hour that we slept was towards the end and we awoke to the pilot speaking on the intercom and telling us we were less than an hour away! We flew over Ireland which was cool to see! So green! I need to go there someday as well. Then I saw the ocean again and peeled my eyes for the first sight of land. Finally, I saw it! It was such a crazy feeling actually seeing England for the first time. I was a little emotional but surprisingly didn't cry. It was so cool to see the quilt-like green land and wonder what part of England it was and wonder what history took place on these pieces of land. Amazing.

I looked so nasty but I was seeing England for the first time! 

There's my England!

We landed at Gatwick Airport which is about an hours drive away from London. When we flew near London it was super cloudy so we didn't get to see much of it while flying. Gatwick Airport reminded me so much of the airport in Bentonville, Arkansas so it didn't really feel like we were actually in England yet. Am I really here? We got off the plane and walked to the passport patrol area. While walking, we turned a corner and there was a huge mosaic picture of Queen Elizabeth II. Yep, we're really in England! The line took so long at the passport patrol and I was getting impatient. It was such a movie moment when the patrol guy stamped my passport to allow me into the country. We walked over to where the trains and buses were and got tickets for the Gatwick Express train. The guy who helped us was actually kind of rude and condescending so it made me a little nervous that all the British people would behave that way to us. 

We caught our train which only took us 30 minutes by train to get to London. On the way there my eyes were glued to the window. It was so interesting to see the cramped houses altogether and a little taste of the countryside. Although it also seemed like I was back in the New York countryside. Again... Am I really here? I've done so much research and looked at so many photos of England but as we got into London it didn't seem familiar to me at all which I thought it might.

We got into Victoria Station which was extremely busy since its a major travel hub. We went down to the underground station and tried to figure out which line to take. In my itinerary, I wrote down which line to take on almost all of our travels throughout the trip except this day. Why? Why!? I got an international phone plan but my phone wasn't working to use Citymapper. (Come to find out I just had to put it on roaming.. or something.. I don't know Trevor did it.) We finally found the right line and took our first tube to Embankment station. We then walked across a bridge over the Thames river. It was so different than I imagined, so much better. I started seeing places I recognized like Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben), Parliament, and also St. Paul's was hard to miss. Again... Yep, we're really in England!

We stayed at the Novotel Hotel and I was pleasantly surprised how nice it was! Definitely the nicest place we stayed while in England. We dropped off our backpacks and took a very quick shower and very very quickly got ready and headed out the door! We stayed literally across the river from Elizabeth Tower which is exciting! So we walked across another bridge and towards Houses of Parliament. We stopped and took some photos of us by Parliament in Victoria Tower Gardens. 

Victoria Tower & Houses of Parliament

Houses of Parliament or Palace of Westminster as it is also called. I can't decide which name sounds cooler.

I would always daydream and literally dream about going to England. I literally dreamed about it once a month or more. In my daydreams and literal dreams, I would always be looking up at Big Ben (Elizabeth Tower). Big Ben was one thing I've always wanted to see. So when I found out a couple of years ago (or however long it was when they announced it.) that Big Ben would be getting work done and have scaffolding all over it I was SO depressed. It seriously makes me so sad that I didn't get to see it. The clock face was visible but that was basically all I could see of it. So sad! I didn't even really want to get close and look at it because I was so offended that they would do that to my precious Ben. 

We walked to the Parliament Square area and quickly found out that this is the area where many demonstrations and protests are held. Many people were there over the whole Brexit business. Westminster Abbey is right next to Parliament so we walked over there and took a million pictures. We didn't go inside this day because it was closed and we planned on going on Monday. It was very exciting for me to see Westminster Abbey, definitely one of the highlights of my trip! Seriously though.. it must be scaffolding season because most of the major attractions I went to had some scaffolding and work being done on it, as did Westminster Abbey. 

"The Modern Martyrs" Martin Luther King is in the middle.

I was a little nervous about the protesters so we decided to just wander around since I didn't make any plans for the evening because most attractions were closed. We were walking and we saw a gate with a bunch of guys wearing tactical gear and holding huge guns. We were wondering what the heck that was about so I looked on the map on my phone (which thankfully was working by now) to see where we were and I saw that we were by 10 Downing Street! Whaaaaat. Its where the headquarters for their government is and the office of the Prime Minister! Cool! Any Doctor Who fans out there? I was definitely checking to make sure I didn't see the Slitheen family there. Yikes. 

We wandered around and kept gawking at the beautiful and old buildings. Trevor and I kept thinking... There is just nothing like this in the US. Some of the buildings we were seeing were older than our country! 

Does this or does this not look like the scene in Harry Potter 7 where Harry, Ron, and Hermione use the polyjuice potion before going into the Ministry of Magic? 

Had to. So classic.

Regent Street which OF COURSE had scaffolding on it.

After walking around Covent Garden we decided to go eat. I had a whole list to choose from and we decided to try the Flat Iron. We had to wait for 20 minutes so we walked around Covent Garden some more and while we were in a little candy shop the floor started rocking! Then Trevor says to me, "Does it feel like you're walking on a boat?" Yes! I look around and nobody is noticing anything and I realized that it was only Trevor and I who were feeling this way! We were just so tired and so jet-lagged and it was definitely starting to hit us. The boat definitely rocked the rest of the night. Our table was ready so we walked back to Flat Iron and they took us downstairs to our table and sat us at a table for 6. In a lot of the restaurants there they sit you at tables with other people. I didn't really enjoy that. Flat Iron has a very small menu of just steak and "chips". It was seriously so delicious. I got the normal steak and Trevor got the special for the day which was a different type. I'm so mad at myself for not taking a picture of my steak because it looked so appetizing! Trevor's did not and that's the only picture we took. Ah well... ya live and you learn. The steak came with a mini cleaver knife which was so cute! The fries were "Beef Drippings Chips" which tasted better than it sounds. Trevor and I ate in almost silence because we were so incredibly tired. 

After we ate we went to a couple of stores and I got myself a new coat. One thing we noticed while being in London for only half a day is that everyone dresses super nice. The coat I brought was a men's and it was really warm but it just wasn't cute or fit me well so I bought myself a nice British looking coat. Ha! At H&M of all places... I know roll your eye along with me. I know I should have gone somewhere that we don't have here in the states but they're cute and cheap, okay!? 

We walked to Trafalgar Square and took some pictures and then walked up The Mall (pronounced Mal, like in Malory, apparently) to Buckingham Palace! The Queen's Guard wasn't there, unfortunately. Just more men clad in tactical gear with huge guns. I tried to see if I could go have tea with the queen but they just told me no. Rude. 

Trafalgar Square

The Queen Victoria Memorial

Buckingham Palace

We made our way towards Victoria Station and while on the way there we stopped at Waitrose, a grocery store. One thing I looked forward to was trying their candy and sweets! So we stopped and got WAY too much. Worth it. We took a bus back to our hotel and pigged out before crashing. My favorite were the Jammie Dodgers, Mr. Kipling Cherry Bakewells, Jaffa Cakes, and Trevor and I both died over the Jelly Babies.

We ended up going to sleep at around 8 o'clock. We went to bed early pretty much every night. Since we don't drink or go to clubs we really had no business being out late. We were exhausted around 7 or 8 anyway. Goodnight and onto the next day!