After a long (and somewhat painful) nearly seven and a half hours later on a flight from a familiar place to somewhere brand new, we arrived at London Heathrow. Let’s talk math for a second – London is approximately 3,000 miles, one ocean and one seven-hour plane right away from Pittsburgh.
We hit the ground running as soon as we met our tour director, David. We boarded a coach bus and drove through some of the most historical places in the area. We had a lovely local tour guide named Jan help point out these famous locations.
The one place that definitely stood out the most for me was Buckingham Palace. It’s crazy to think you can see the queen’s home on TV or in the news, but to see it yourself… that’s a different story. I became absolutely obsessed with the guards outside of the palace.
This is where we got to get off the coach and got to walk to the gates of Buckingham Palace. To try and describe the wonder of this spectacle would be an absolute dishonor to the beautiful architectural structure.
Unfortunately, the Queen was not at Buckingham Palace when we were there. It’s probably safe to say that the Queen probably was off… seeing the newest addition to the royal lineage make his mark in the world later that afternoon.
Ironically, May 6th, the day that we arrive in London has a special significance now – Meghan and Harry’s baby’s birthday!
After returning back to the coach, we learned more about historical spots around London. Some of those spots included the London Eye, Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and Westminster Abbey, to name a few.
For lunch, we stopped at Wagamama to get food before our next stop… The Tower of London. Walking around the Tower of London was a surreal moment because there is so much rich history in that tiny village-like area.
If you ever get a chance to go to the Tower of London, I recommend standing in the long line to see the Crown Jewels. There’s nothing of that kind of stature in the States.
One of the things I could’ve done without was seeing the HUGE ravens. When I say huge… I mean HUGE. They’re cool and all, but they’re also terrifying.
After checking into our hotel, we had some downtime before the classic “Welcome to England” dinner of fish and chips.
If you’ve never had authentic British fish and chips, you’re missing out. I highly recommend it.
Also, if you’ve never taken a walk around the Tottenham Court Road area with some of your best pals… I highly recommend that too.
This place is weird… but in a really good kind of way.
As I’m writing this at nearly 10:30 p.m., jet lag has officially hit me. Tomorrow is not only a new day but a new adventure ahead of us 3,000 miles from home.