This morning we woke up late, since we arrived into London on a Sunday and didn't realize that the local supermarket (a Tesco Express a few blocks away at Notting Hill Gate station) would close at 6, we didn't have any food in the apartment for breakfast. So we set off for a small cafe for breakfast on Portabello Road, a little less than a 10 minute walk. Once again the travel stars came in handy as Paige's bacon wasn't bacon, or ham, or peameal - but it was good and she ate most of it, along with the wet scrambled eggs - lol! I told them the story about how my Mom used to make me coddled eggs (wet scrambled eggs) every day on toast when I was a kid until I announced one day that I no longer liked eggs and I wouldn't eat them. From that day forward my favourite meal was hamburger on toast! Which some time later (I think months and months later) I realized was still coddled eggs on toast, my Mom just TOLD me it was hamburger!
After breakfast we tackled the TUBE. So first, I bought too many Oyster cards (the London transit card) because the kids are free until they're 11 and I didn't realize until afterwards. I bought 4 with 10 GBP each on them - each ride is 2-3 GBP depending on where you are going, so I think that we'll still use them up while we're here anyway, and if not I'll leave what we have in the flat.
So we took the tube 3 stops from Notting Hill Gate to Marble Arch to catch the hop on hop off tourist bus that I always make fun of but I always go on because its the best way to see a city! 3 tube stops doesn't seem like much, but the GPS on the phone said it was about a 30 minute walk. We caught the hop on bus and started on the tour on the top of the double decker bus. The weather was nice today, not too cold. I had on jeans and my lulu sweater and brought my jacket with me since Jay announced this morning that there was a 30% chance of rain...he just said the exact same thing right now (its now 9:30pm..."weather for tomorrow...hmmmm...30% chance of rain" - so I'm not so worried.
We saw all the major sites:
The London Eye with "Big Ben" framed inside of it - even though we were reminded during the tour that Big Ben is the nickname for the bell within the tower and not the tower itself.
Sophie, with London Bridge in the background
The Girls with Tower Bridge
Big Ben and tower at Westminster Palace.
Parliament Building.
After doing the loop we decided to get off on Regent Street (one of London's High Streets) to do some shopping and have a late lunch. We ate at a little restaurant that was yummy and then went to Hamley's a 5 storey toy store to let the girls redeem the 5 travel stars they had earned for a little treat. Paige chose these awesome markers that change colour and erase and where you can colour black and then put light pink, etc overtop...fun and we'll get a lot of use out of them. Sophie chose a stuffed rabbit - we completely avoided the 3rd floor which housed Build-A-Bear workshop because that would have been a disaster. We also went into Esprit and bought a few things for them and a shirt for Jay.
After shopping we took the tube back to our stop and Jay took the girls home while I went to grab a few groceries - we had a quick and easy dinner at home, I bought bread, ham, salami, chorizo, cheese, strawberries, oranges, bananas, water, a Magners and a Kronenbourg for dinner, yogurt drinks, 2 blueberry muffins and 2 chocolate croissants for breakfast tomorrow and pringles for a snack for 25 GBP...and thanked my lucky stars I wasn't in Monte Carlo where it would have been like 100 EUR for the same basket full of stuff!
Tomorrow I think we might go to the Aquarium and the Museum...and we need to see Buckingham Palace because on the tour bus you have to get off the bus and walk around the front to see it and we stayed on the bus. We are right near Kensington Palace so we'll probably go there too and take the girls to the park again.
We really are in the perfect location - its been so awesome being so close to the park and to the underground stations. Tomorrow is our last full day here since we fly out at noon on Wednesday.
Who's going on the London Eye?
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