This year the Schwab family is headed to Europe. Callie graduated from high school this year and is looking to get a part time job soon so there is no guarantee she'll be able to travel with us all the time. That meant possibly our 'last' full family vacation. (Though I'm sure she's going to try to find ways to join us on future vacations.) Our trip started with a direct flight from Vancouver to London. It was supposed to take us 9 hours 30 minutes but due to favorable winds and a medical emergency, it only took 8 hours 55 minutes. The medical emergency made it to London. They asked if there was a doctor on board twice but I'm not sure what happened.
We had a lot of things planned for this trip thanks to Kerry but admittedly we didn't have everything planned. For instance we had no idea how we were going to get from the airport to our hotel. We figured it was either going to be the train or a taxi and the train was the first sign we saw. We got a bit confused on which train to get on but eventually found someone that explained what we needed to do. The biggest tip was that for the trip we were taking, it made sense to just get a day pass. We learned that 'Mind the gap' means you better watch your step or you can find yourself stuck between the platform and the train.
It took two trains to get to our stop and then a 5 minute walk to our hotel. We're staying at the Apex City of London. I was expecting it to be smaller, with older style rooms but our room is quite spacious. It's got a king sized bed and a pull out couch that could sleep up to three. We had brought a power converter for London and the rest of Europe but technically we could have almost got away without one. Each of the outlets has a USB connector for our phones. We still need one for the laptop and hair dryer though.
We got to our hotel around 3:00p so we had time to wander around and do a bit of sightseeing. We are near the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London so we headed there for dinner. Carter and I had 'Traditional Fish and Chips'. It wasn't bad but I have had better. For some reason they didn't have tarter sauce and only had mayonnaise. Carter and I are planning on trying again. For today we just saw the outside of sights though we may try to go inside the Tower of London. Apparently lots of famous people have been housed and killed there.
So far London has been one of the nicest cities I've been to. Lots of old world architecture and very clean. We walked blocks before we even saw a piece of trash. I noticed one of their 1-800-GOT-JUNK style trucks and it was fully caged meaning much less likely for garbage to get blown out. The greenery is also very lush. It was 30 degrees for our first day but it's going to cool off later in the week with rain. There were a few homeless people but nowhere near what I see when I'm in Vancouver or in a US city. Tomorrow we go visit the King at Buckingham Palace.
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