The first day in London

This is the second of several London posts so scroll down to see more!

Our trip started at 5:30 p.m. on October 3rd when the girls and I drove over to Aunt Terry's house. Then I had to drive back to MY house because I forgot our tube passes. All's well that ends well though because I was back to Terry's in plenty of time to get on the van to the airport.

We were very lucky with security (no body or bag checks or line!) and then found a place to wait for the next several hours to board our 10 p.m. flight to London. Yes, I was something of a nervous wreck, but Hannah and Lizzie's crazy excitement distracted me enough (for those of you who don't know I get nervous before a flight, but once I'm on the plane I am fine!) We had snacks from Au Bon Pain and waited...

Here's Hannah in the airport:

The flight was just about perfect... probably a little bumpy at places, but we got in a little early to Heathrow. Lizzie curled up like a puppy in her seat and slept a bit. Hannah tried, but couldn't, so neither one of us got too much sleep. The was the girls' first plane ride. Here they are on the plane somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean:

But that was okay because a few hours later we were in LONDON!!!

Let me give you a quick tour of our "London Home."
This is Lizzie relaxing in the living room:

 This is the other side of that room, with the television and the dining alcove:

 This is the bathroom where you had to prime the handle to get the toilet to flush. It's also the scene of a huge flood when the maid was cleaning the upstairs bathroom and left the water running in the tub. Eventually it overflowed and came POURING into our bathroom through the light fixtures. And I POURING. I made a frantic call to the front desk and it was fixed in a matter of minutes ... but I'm pretty sure some heads rolled after that one!

My bedroom which I refused to share with the girls. They slept in the sleeper sofa in the main living room, which the main/porter prepared for them each night at turndown service:

 Our kitchen. You can't see it, but it's filled with complimentary items such as ben and jerry's ice cream, candy bars, potato chips, soda, juice, milk and water. Each day we got fresh fruit, too: bananas, plums, strawberries, peaches and apples. There was also coffee and tea in the room.

 Real live plant (orchid?) in the room:

 

This is the view of the park (and a double decker bus) from our living room:

And now let me show you London!
This shot was taken on the London Eye, a huge enclosed ferris wheel that moves slowly around giving great shots of the city. Here you can see Big Ben and Parliament on the banks of the river:

Here are some more shots of us on the Eye. You can tell we are a little tired, but I have to say that it wasn't only the lack of sleep but that Terry suggested we walk to the Eye from Buckingham Palace (which we'd already walked to) and I believe it was about 16 miles.
This is the view of the Thames, plus you can see the type of capsule that we were in:

Hannah, with London at her feet:

And here are Bean, Liz, Terry, Shelby (the only smart one to wear sunglasses to hide the bags under her eyes!) and Hannah. You can see Big Ben over Lizzie's shoulder:

And speaking of Big Ben, I snapped this quintessential London shot during our forced march walk through the city to get to the London Eye:

Eventually we got back to our apartment (and we took the tube back which was better even though it included three HUGE escalators down to the center of the Earth). This is what we got in our room when we arrived back. The Athenaeum gave the girls yoyos, coloring books, birdseed and the use of a frisbee, a kite and a book about London. They also set up a Wii for them with the Mario games and gave us an extensive list of DVDs that we could order from reception. When we did that a few days later the movie arrived with a large bowl of popcorn (freshly popped -- no microwave here!)

Once the girls were done rejoicing over this stuff there was a knock on the door and they were presented with these cakes. Lizzie's was vanilla with whipped cream and Hannah's was a dark chocolate. The girls and I ordered in dinner that night and got to bed around 9 p.m. We got up the next morning around 9 a.m. and were ready to enjoy the rest of our vacation: