Day out in London

May 17 – We landed at London Gatwick airport around 6:15 AM after a few hours of sleep on the plane.  Exiting the airport was actually a breeze!  I don’t know if that was because we came in from the US where security is so tight but all we had to do was scan our passport and exit to ground transportation and trains.  It felt like leaving a metro train station.   John is so great at doing the research ahead so we were able to navigate to the correct train station fairly easily.  Once he taught us all how to scan ourselves in and out of the station, we are able to move through like pros.   

The train into London was an express which was good and bad.  The train was packed because it was rush hour.  Carter and I stepped on the train leaving zero room for John and GraceLin.  They continued walking down the platform and I’m not sure if we felt confident they did get on the train.  Those already on did not shift around to accommodate new comers.  We were standing with backpacks on for a half hour or more rocking along the tracks like sardines in a can.:)   We had a plan and it was great to reconnect our family at London Bridge Station!

The walk to drop our luggage with ‘Nannybag,’ took us through a residential area.  The best part was watching parents walking their children to school!  One big sister who was along to drop her little brother at daycare before she went to school walked away saying, “he’s so happy!  That made him happy!”   The Nannybag location was just a small dry goods market.  He just shifted aside a shopping card filled with cardboard, moved a few things about on his storeroom shelves and parked our bags.  We walked away with our smaller backpacks in search of coffee.  The store owner recommended one just across the street and came out on the curb to make sure we found it.                

Armed with a little more caffeine, we headed for the Tower Bridge along with all the locals just starting their day.  Imagine living in the midst of thousands of years of history and just going about your day getting to work/school.  We felt in aw as we looked across the river to see the Tower of London.   We were not the only people out touring early in the morning.  There were many people along the river walk posing for photos with the bridge as the backdrop.  We quickly found a breakfast spot tucked into what looked like office buildings.  The food was decent and servers were attentive however, our next stop was the Borough Market which made us wish we had held our hunger a little longer.   I’m not sure this restaurant made Grace’s journal. 

This being our ‘body adjust day’ and already we had about 12,000 steps, we decided to go ahead with a Thames River cruise eastward to Greenwich, the summer playground of royalty as I understood it.  One outstanding piece of history that I did not know was that Henry VIII was a very into jousting.  Greenwich was evidently where he ‘played’ frequently.  Ultimately it was a jousting injury that created his sedentary lifestyle and portly appearance for which he is well known.  As we focus on living more healthy lifestyles, it’s odd to remember that being Royal or someone in a governing role once was shown by rich, unhealthy eating habits.  

At Greenwich, the west meets the east at the prime meridian.  John thought it very clever to have the Wild West meet the Far East on either side!  You can slightly see the dark streak in the grass behind them representing the line.  There was an official marker in brick. 

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After Greenwich we picked up bags, checked into the Residence Inn, and rested our feet a while.  Eventually hunger drove us back out into the local community.  There is quaint area around the corner with restaurants and a market.  We chose B Street Market for a light dinner sitting at a bar along the inside wall of the market.  The food was outstanding and the staff were a lot of fun!  This one definitely prompted a write up by Grace (to be added later).  *Bremondsey was the community or district.   After forcing our feet to move us back toward the hotel we had a nice after dinner walk.  That woke us up enough to quickly ran down to get some laundry started while everyone took turns showering.  It was maybe a half hour to 45 minutes and we had lights out by 7PM.  I’m not sure Carter’s head hit the pillow before he was asleep and snoring so loudly he had the rest of us laughing.  We all loved our first day!