in London and loving it!

It is official (well, technically it has been official since yesterday): Shannon and I are in London!

 Waiting for our plane in Minneapolis

Heathrow!

We arrived at Heathrow Airport yesterday around noon where Shannon's aunt Jeanne met us. We then had our first experiences with the tube and the buses! And let me tell you, it is not very fun when you have suitcases. But we still had a wonderful time taking everything in...although we were quite exhausted. We rode on our very first double-decker bus and were struggling to stay awake the entire time-we kept nodding off! Don't judge though; we each only got about an hour of sleep on the flight. I really wish I could sleep on planes! So when we got to Jeanne's house, we took a nap. Exciting stuff, I know.

 Our first form of public transportation in London: the Overground :)

When we woke up from our snooze it was 6 p.m. London time. Jeanne showed us around the area she lives in and we got to see a lot of cool shops, cafes, and pubs. We ate dinner at a pub and got to eat outside since it was such a beautiful day. And I discovered that I enjoy eating prawns (a type of shrimp for those like me who have no idea what that is).

We stopped at a local grocery store on the way home and then walked through the park back to Jeanne's house. After making our plans for Thursday we went to bed!

Today was quite interesting! Surprisingly, we were both up before 8:45 a.m. so we got ready for the day and left Jeanne's at 11 a.m. We got on the bus fine, but then we had to go on the Overground again and we weren't sure which platform we needed to take to get to where we were going-and there were 5 platforms to choose from.

 And we are off on our first day!

I'm sure we looked like completely lost tourists (which was not our goal) so we were approached by this older guy. Who was kind of sketch in my opinion. Shannon's first thoughts: "Yay! A nice person who will help us." My first thoughts: "Great. Some creepy old guy who is going to take advantage of us." Yes, I realize I think the worst of people sometimes. Better safe than sorry! Shannon eventually became worried he was never going to leave us alone haha. Anyways, the guy was probably 55-60, looked kind of homeless, and he may have been drunk. I couldn't really tell. I did know that I couldn't understand half of what he was saying. He asked us if we needed help so we showed him where we wanted to go. After a couple of minutes he couldn't figure it out either so he asked a guy who worked there (we realized we should have just asked him first) and he got us to the right platform. But then he kept talking to us about how people in London were really rude, how the attendant person had actually given us the wrong directions, and other things I couldn't understand. I just kept agreeing to whatever he was saying and then told him thanks for his help, and we walked away. He got the hint.

 On the Tube

After that, we got on the correct tube line, but there were delays due to a fire or something that had happened so we decided to get out and walk. We were pretty close to where we needed to be, right? Wrong! We got off at Westminster so it was exciting to see Big Ben and the London Eye, but we made a few wrong turns and had to backtrack a couple of times. We finally got to our destination of Kensington Gardens and we were so proud of ourselves! And also really hot and tired. But it was a lot of fun being 'lost' and finding our way. We also got to see a lot of London that we probably wouldn't have, even though it took us almost 9 miles and 2 hours to do so! It was definitely an adventure. We sat in the shade and relaxed while eating our picnic lunch :)

 The London Eye! Yay! We are going to ride it next week :)

 Wellington Arch...we walked underneath it while we were finding our way

 the park!

After that it was about 3:00 p.m. and we went to the Victoria and Albert museum where we looked around for a couple of hours. Then we went to Harrods (just to say we have been there haha) and then headed back to Jeanne's around 5. We didn't make it back to her place until after 7:00! The tube was filled with people coming home from work and stuff so the buses were packed full of people and we kept having to wait for the next ones. We stopped to pick up groceries for dinner and then we were back! We had a late dinner and then spent a good amount of time discussing more of our itinerary for the rest of our stay here.

Hooray for a classic tourist shot at Harrods :)

So far I am loving London! Especially all of the accents :) and we were waved at by a car full of British boys. Be jealous. ;)