Saturday August 13th

Saturday Aug 13th

Everyone sleeps in but me but time is money so curtains wide opened to complaints from all but away we go. Out the door by 9, grab some Subway for the subway and off to Kings Cross to Platform 9 3/4.

We foolishly stopped at Marble Arch and got off the subway to try to get on our tour line bus but it didn't start for another hour. We grabbed a red line bus and hopped off only have to walk 30 minutes with the BPH (backpack from Hell) that seems to be attached to me for life jammed full of water bottles and things we NEED ( don't need) for the day.

We arrived at Platform 9 3/4 to a very long line of people posing for official photos. Thankfully we had some wifi and waited patiently for our turn. When we got our turn, we took family and individual photos and purchased 3 of them as they were quite good.
Kings Cross is a major train station with an information board filled with departures and arrivals.  There are hundreds of people everywhere coming and going. It isn't very far from where J K Rowling has a flat that supposedly cost 65 Million Pounds...
After purchasing the photos, we walked around the Harry Potter store only to realize what an empire this has become.  I cannot imagine how crazy the DisneyWorld store in Florida must have been at the height of the last book/movie. Now with the release of the new book, there is a renewed interest in Rowling work and revitalizing the merchandise market nice again. Simply astounding.  
We had to get Starbucks for you know who (she who will not be named 😊 ) and crossed the street to the bus stop to wait a long time for our bus.
Then a decision was made to walk another 20 minutes to find another bus stop. Good thing we spent hundreds of dollars on transit to spend the entire day walking in circles to locate buses. 😒
After we finally found a bus we hooped on to rest our feet and headed around the downtown core for awhile we got off at Covent Garden.
Wow. Farmers market on every performance enhancing drug all at the same time. Blocks and blocks of vendors inside and out selling everything on the planet.
You name it. You can buy it here.
Highlights included a wooden stick you can hang 2-4 clay pots in (would be an amazing Mother's day art project), individually painted running shoes and greeting cards that open up to the most incredibly laser cut origami on the planet.
We wandered a bit and found some street performers who entertained us for awhile.
We left to wander a few back streets and find the oldest pub in Covent Garden - the Lamb and Flag. We met Krista's uncle Nick and wife Catherine for lunch. We had our own private reserved table on the top floor and had a lovely lunch catching up with them.
We left and went to Covent Garden to look at some art and part ways with them. We found a nice print of London to add to our dining room walls of travel.
We decided to head back to the bus and see the NE line before our bus priveleges were no longer valid. Along the way we stumbled on the Lion King theatre with a lottery of tickets for only 25 pounds. We entered all 4 names and came back 30 minutes later. Sure enough Krista won 2 but we needed 4. Upon discovering that there weren't any others available, we gave ours to a family of 8 that had won 6 and they were incredibly grateful. Good deed of the day done.
We hopped back on the bus and went to Trafalgar Square where we snapped a few photos of Canada House and some of the statues there.
We again had to walk a ton of blocks to Buckingham Palace gates as Krista thought we might be able to get photos of the boys with a guard but they were tucked way away behind fences. We would come back on Monday morning to the official Changing of the Guard.
We walked across Green Park (likely no relation) and to the tube. Everyone was was pretty walked out for today so we headed back to North Acton station.  
We hit the bank machine and pulled out another 500 lbs ($878.50 CDN) for tomorrow's attempt at scalping some Soccer tickets for Arsenal Liverpool and grabbed a pizza at Domino's before heading to the hotel for 10pm.

Friday August 12th

Friday August 12th

A bit of a sleep in after a late night visiting on the moors. We showered and ate a couple pieces of toast and were packed and out the door by 10. Paul drove us to the train and helped get our tickets straightened away.  We waited 10 minutes for the train and we were off again!

Traveling along the ocean to start was very scenic and comforting as we passed all the places we had hiked on day 1. We turned a bit west into Exeter and along the river Exe as we saw hundreds of boats moored in the river including Paul/Annes motorboat in there somewhere.

We arrived in Exeter and had to switch trains.  Krista appeared to have said I have 22 minutes so went to the washroom only to have Jacob run in and yell "Dad the train is here !!" Apparently she said I had 1 or 2 minutes.  Yikes.
Jumped on the train and off to London! 
Some scenic spots along the way but mostly a view of trees and shrubs jammed up against the rail line.
As we rolled into London,  the industrial areas were write astounding as we saw many factories and such as we entered Paddington Station from the south. We were the lady ones off our railcar as our backpacks continue to get heavier and heavier with each stop.
We were starving but knew we had to get our bearings and figure out transportation and food before heading out.  We hit the information station and bought tube passes for the weekend. We grabbed some quick Burger King and headed out to the tube.

We got on at Paddington and switched trains onto the Central line and headed south to North Acton. We got off the train and our Holiday Inn was right there!!! Except it had a different name?  We asked at the front desk and they said we had to walk 2 more blocks over to the 'other' Holiday Inn. Who knew?

Sure enough there it was 2 blocks away. It took a while for them to get a hide a bed couch into our room but we checked in and then downloaded passes for the hop on hop off bus with the London Eye package. We loaded our day pack and we were gone!

A quick stop at Subway for lunch and onto the tube.  We got off at the Marble Arch and exchanged our Ecoupon for tickets and onto the yellow bus we got. We traveled around the city stopping at all the many different tourist stops and taking pictures. Highlights included Buckingham Palace and Parliament buildings. We passed by Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.
We decided to get off after we crossed the Westminster bridge and wall back across it to the Thames river cruise as we had free tickets to use with our bus ticket package.
The blazing sun shone in our eyes at a balmy 27 degrees as we walked back towards the Abbey and Big Ben with the thousands of tourists of every language and color from around the globe.

We walked down the stairs to the marina and onto a large river boat with several hundred others. We found a spot on the top and had a great view! I grabbed a bottle of cider for Krista and I to share and a sandwich. We went for a 20 minute ride and ended up at the Tower Bridge where we got off and walked back to the bus stop to continue our city tour.

Friday Aug 12 part 2

We walked around a bit and saw the sights before getting on the yellow bus again and headed a few stops to Trafalgar Square.  There were absolutely hoards of people packed into every square cm of the place. We hopped off the bus and made the executive decision that we should go get on the London Eye for a ride in case it was too lined up through the weekend.
We grabbed a bite to eat as everyone but me was bordering on completely miserable. Some chicken strips and pizza and everyone was right in the head again.
We walked back to the river and across a bridge to the Eye. The sun had begun to set and all the lights were coming on such that the city had quite a glow about it. There was a neon pink double decker bus serving yogurt near the Eye that really got your attention.
We got to the Eye and had to trade our vouchers in for real tickets in the building beside it. What a complete gong show that was with hundreds of people clamoring to get tickets before the last trip at 930. It was 830 pm and we lined up in the queue with some girls from Texas and New Hampshire. There were two lines and ours moved exponentially quicker and soon we were in our 20 person pod slowly escalating to the sky. It was quite dark in the pod but the views continued to get better and better! After 15 minutes we were at the top and took some super videos and pictures of the city at dusk and then night. We noticed the pod beside us had a couple by themselves drinking champagne  Time seems to fly and soon we were back on the ground.

We walked along the Thames for a bit before turning across the Westminster bridge towards Big Ben again. The lights illuminating it and the many buildings downtown seemed surreal for a kid from Porcupine Plain Sask...
We grabbed some muffins and stayed to watch Ben strike 10pm. It was a neat experience with the boys to be downtown London on a warm August evening.
We caught the tube back to the west side of the city and arrived at our hotel before 11. A bit of Olympics and internetting and we were soon unconscious after another busy day.