England Trip With My Dad! - Travel Day + Day 1

I did it! After years and years (I'm talking 15+ years) of begging, I finally convinced my dad to go to England! He waited to say yes until I was an adult so I had to pay my own way. How convenient, Dad!! Haha just kidding! But, really, I have been begging my parents to go to England with me for years and I'd always jokingly throw in a comment about going in any situation I got. (Everyone knows I'm obsessed with England so naturally, I talked about it a lot.) I was so surprised when my dad actually started to consider it! I'll take considering! I priced out the trip and presented the cost to him and he agreed to go! I couldn't believe my ears! Did he say yes!? YES!!! So this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down.. Sorry. I mean.. This is about the wonderful trip to England my dad and I took!

To start, I have to mention the real MVPs of this trip. My mom and Trevor! I'm so grateful to them for making this trip happen! They stayed home and watched the kids for me and made sure all was well on the homefront. Thanks again, Mom and Trevor! I love you both so much! 

So, for this trip, we decided to just stay in London since we were only going to be there for 5 days and since I had already been there I was the designated tour guide. I completely took the reigns on this trip which was weird since that was usually my dad's job! Almost every single place that we went to was a repeat of my last trip, and do I regret it? Not for a second! I could go back and visit those places over and over again! 

After I bought our tickets (and I came out of shock of actually buying our tickets), I went into research mode again. Gosh, I love researching a trip! I got everything planned out and ready to go and this time I only had to wait a couple of months before our trip started!

My parents came up a couple of days before we left to get my mom all settled in. Our flight didn't leave until midnight and that day my dad and I were nervous wrecks. We both just had this feeling of uneasiness. I even at one point asked my dad, "Are you sure you want to still go?" Why were we so nervous!? After saying an emotional goodbye to my mom and my kids, Trevor drove us to the airport. The excitement was starting to hit. I love the drive to the airport. I'm always so nervous and excited! After another emotional goodbye to Trevor, my dad and I set off on our adventure!

When we were boarding the plane there was a strange lady in front of us. While we were in the line to board she would stand there as the line starts moving and slowly bend down to pick up her bag and then she'd wait for the people to walk in front of her so that she would have lots of space to walk. Then, she would strut. Strut! down the walkway, leg crossing leg. It was the most bizarre thing. My dad and I side-eyed each other wondering what the heck we just watched. Then when on the plane she stops in front of her seat in the walkway and starts taking her scarf and jacket off slowly and totally holds up the line. The stewardess asked her to go in her row and then she just stared at her while she finished. What the heck. Didn't realize the Queen of England was on our flight! My gosh.. 

We first flew to New York City and flew into JFK. I've flown into NYC before, but we flew into Laguardia. JFK is on the outskirts of NYC so I was super disappointed that we didn't get to see all the big buildings like I did when flying into Laguardia! Oh well. 

When we got to our next gate I was surprised to see our whole waiting area full of Orthodox Jews! It was seriously so fascinating to watch them. They were having their morning prayers and had their religious clothes on and were rocking back in forth while reading their scriptures. All the men had on their black suits and their black top hats and had the curls on the side of their heads. It was so cool! I love learning about other people's religions and cultures. I ended up sitting next to one Jewish guy and he was downing the alcohol and was so smashed that the stewardesses had to cut him off. I mean no disrespect, but they totally trashed the plane. I've never seen anything like it. The stewardesses were so frazzled and it was apparent that they had just given up trying to keep it clean. it was madness! 

We landed, got through border patrol, and found a taxi. We're in England! Although it cost a pretty penny, I'm so glad we got a taxi to our hotel! It was about 9 or 10 at night and even though I knew how to use the tube, I thought it would be best to get dropped off right outside the hotel since it was late at night. Our driver drove through the best places! We were able to see so much of the beautiful city right away. It was wonderful. We got to the hotel and we realized we were starving. My dad wanted to go out and walk around to get food, but I talked him out of it since it was late and I wasn't comfortable with the area yet. We order a bunch of food and it was disgusting! Sorry to be so negative but it was nasty. We then got our stuff ready for the next day and crashed! We went to sleep around 11 so we got a full 8 hours of sleep which was amazing because we had very little jet lag!  

We stayed in the area of Bermondsey. My dad's brother works for Marriot so we were able to get a really cheap hotel and a pretty decent place! It was down a random alleyway. Since it was a Marriot they provided a continental breakfast that had a very English flair to it. People in England eat pork and beans for breakfast! It was actually super good!  It was super nice to get a free breakfast since I found that most hotels in London don't provide it. After breakfast, we hit the road! Across the street from our hotel was a beautiful church, so we stopped and looked at it for a second before walking to the tube station. 

Our home train/tube station was the London Bridge station which was about a mile walk from our hotel. We added money to our Oyster cards and after checking Citymapper (a lifesaver) a thousand times we found the right platform. We took the tube to Westminster and had to change lines to get there. Those stations just give me so much anxiety! Everyone is in a hurry. If everyone could just leave about 15 minutes earlier to work then we wouldn't all be so rushed and full of anxiety! Thank you! 

We walked out of the busy station and our eyes beheld the beauty, the wonder, the exquisiteness that is Big Ben. Oh BEN! I've waited my whole life to see you! When Trevor and I came in 2019 Big Ben was covered in scaffolding and I was seriously so upset about it! I knew beforehand that it was covered but I was still so bummed out. So, getting to see him in all his glory was amazing and everything I hoped it would be! He is just so iconic! 

I wanted our first attraction to be Westminster Abbey. It was my favorite place from my last trip so I knew I had to take my dad. He admitted to me later that he was a little hesitant to go here first. He thought it was just some old church. It ended up being his favorite place, too! It was so fun to see the look on his face when he first walked in. 

Westminster Abbey is a shocking place. It's full of grand statues and immense ceilings and extremely old tombs. The small intricate details are my favorite to look at. There is just so much! I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were allowing photography this time, so my dad and I were like kids in a candy store and we couldn't get enough! I think between the two of us we took a thousand pictures! Here's just a hundred of them! 

After visiting the abbey for a couple of hours and stopping by the amazing souvenir shop we decided to make our way to Buckingham Palace! The last time I came with Trevor we only saw it at night so it was fun to see it the day and see the Queen’s Guard in their red suits and furry hats! When we came at night last time there were soldiers in black holding machine guns.

After hitting the gift shop we walked towards the iconic Trafalgar Square and looked around and people watched. There was some kind of protest going on and a guy was speaking very passionately in Spanish so we didn’t know what was going on. 

I wanted to go to my favorite store Primark, so we caught a bus and as we were walking I told my dad I was feeling pretty sleepy. He told me that he was surprisingly feeling great, and I kid you not, two seconds later he kind of slips and I look at him and he has a panicked look on his face. He told me that his knee had popped out and he seemed extremely stressed about it. We sat on a little cement wall and he was able to get it back in place and massaged his knee for awhile. He said to just go on my own to Primark while he rested. I came back and we decided we better head back to the hotel. My poor dad! 

We got back to our home station and made the mile walk to our hotel. Thankfully my dad was okay, but he was definitely worried. His poor knee would slip out towards the end of the day and usually on our walk back to the hotel. I’m so glad it wasn’t worse than it was and he was still able to enjoy the trip! 

Our first day was so much fun! We went home and called, Trevor, the kids, and my mom and then we crashed and we both slept like babies! It was a good day.