“London, thou art the flower of cities all!” -William Dunbar

England! The land of english speaking, beer pubs, gardens, medieval towers, castles, fish & chips, rain, bridges, & the Queen. A good place. A MARVELOUS place to end our trip with. My only regret is that we didn’t have an extra day to stay & explore more, but hey, there’s always next time. 😉 And, it is always good to “have a next time”.

We flew into Heathrow from our exit in Vienna, Austria & arrived in the afternoon. We hopped on the tube & headed towards the main part of London to find our hostel. It was a great location & with Noah’s stellar leading we found it without any issues. We were blessed to have a large family room with a bathroom all to ourselves! (We have a bit of hostel experience & this doesn’t usually happen. So it was a treat!) We spread our stuff out all over the bunk beds, grabbed city maps & headed out. We booked it to the Tower of London thinking we could tour it that evening, but ended up not having enough time to do it justice, so we decided that we would get City Passes & tour the Tower the next day. We walked around, drank coffee, enjoyed the foggy town & its intermittent rain spells, walked across the London Bridge & back again, took lots of pictures, walked through the parks, visited Buckingham Palace & did our due diligence waving at the guards & ended our first day of touring at a nice little pub where we had gigantic hamburgers & beer. It was perfect! From there we took the tube back to our hostel & crashed out.

The next day was our one extremely full day of being the ULTIMATE tourists. We woke up & enjoyed  (not really) our instant coffee & wheat flakes before heading out to brave the big city. We had purchased our special city passes the night before, so after finding some better coffee we went to a designated bus stop for our bus tour. We rode it until we came to Paddington station where we boarded a tiny train bound for Windsor Castle, where the Queen still stays on the weekends. It was overcast & OH so perfect. We were surrounded by school groups & listened to our handy dandy walking tour guide through headphones & tried not to bump into people. We were able to see the changing of the guards, eat lunch & tour the castle before the girls had their no-nap meltdowns. After that, we went & had sandwiches at a little cafe & got on the little train back to Paddington station.

Once there we walked through the rain back to another bus stop that took us on a tour around the city where it felt like we saw so many things, but in reality scratched the surface. London is an immense city with SO much to see & do! It was perfect timing, because both girls took naps the entire time. It was a good break for all of us. We hopped off once we got back to the Tower of London & barely made it onto the last guided tour of the day with the Beefeaters while the skies OPENED UP! It was insane how hard it was raining. We learned a lot, saw the crown jewels & got absolutely drenched while we laughed & ran from covered spot to covered spot before leaving. That was quite a memory, I’m so grateful for it.

“Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.” -Rabindranath Tagore

From there we decided to try the traditional fish & chips, which in hindsight was probably not a good idea because none of us typically eat fried food… but hey, when in England. We jumped on a boat tour after that which took us up the river Thames. It was great & the tour guide was both hilarious & informative. He made quite a few tips that day, for sure. We disembarked at Big Ben & toured around, saw Westminster Abbey & got bombarded with street petitioners because it happened to be VOTING DAY. Each time we got stopped, we just had to say we were american & then we’d move on. It was fascinating being in that nation on THAT monumental day. It seems like things like that happen each time Noah & I travel internationally. A while back we were in Spain when they won the World Cup & that was absolutely ridiculous. SO COOL. I’ve never enjoyed soccer/football so much. 🙂

After that we headed back into the tube to get back over to our hostel, but with how much rain there was, some of the lines were flooded…Let’s just say that that creates chaos & the crowds trying to cram into each train car are in each others armpits & basically holding you so as to not get smashed by the closing doors. This ALSO happens when Noah & I travel. It’s always humorous. Unless you are claustrophobic. Not to mention that everyone was soaking wet from the rain & sweating from the mass of people, so the smell was also, well yuck. Everyone was gracious towards our family unit though, which I was impressed with because of it being time for everyone’s commute home for the evening. It had to have been our cute kids. They open doors nothing else will. A huge perk of traveling with little ones! We got separated at one point during the chaos, but thank goodness my mom has a LOUD voice. 🙂 It all worked out & we ended our last evening in London at a pub standing outside in the rain with our beer. It was PERFECT. That night we showered & packed our stuff so as to be in the right weight category (free) for our flight back home the next day. After almost 3 weeks of traveling, I was impressed with all of us. Our bags, including a few souvenirs picked up along the way, were all less than 9 lbs. Pretty rad. My mom was superwoman & jam packed her bag because she was flying separate from us & had a bit more room allowed for her carry on. The next morning we got up, grabbed some egg croissants & espresso from a train station kiosk & headed in two different directions. My mom flew out of Heathrow, so she went her way & we took a different line to Gatwick. On the train we met a group of traveling dancers who played with Cora & taught Eliana how to point her toes like a ballerina. It was sweet.

At the airport, we boarded our flight home & were delayed an hour & half getting off the ground…with no explanation. But we did eventually get in the air & made it to Iceland, where we were told once we landed that our next flight was delayed an additional 3 hours. It seemed like the tiny airport was swarming with other travelers also stuck in the same predicament. At that point there is nothing else to do but let the little ones run WILD to get their wiggles out, order a pizza & charge your phone. The airport had a row of baby carriages (old school strollers without any harness systems) to use while stuck in the airport like we were, so we took turns pushing Cora around in it, making sure she stayed seated so as to not fall out. Well, of course, that DID happen because she is so quick & luckily Noah grabbed her before she did a full tumble onto the concrete. She did however, score her very first fat bloody lip & covered her onesie with blood. She was a trooper though, & by the next day her lip was back to normal. Plus, we get to say that it happened in Iceland, so that’s pretty cool, especially if she ends up becoming a stunt woman or something.

Eventually we got back in the air & made it home to the big old US of A after a VERY long day of travel. The girls took short naps during the course of the flight home & we adults, did not. By the time we arrived at LAX, we were delirious. My amazing brother & sister in love picked us up & we crashed at their house for the night before driving 5 1/2 hours home the next day.

That, my friends, brings us to the end of our summer of 2016 european adventure!

Needless to say, it was INCREDIBLE. It was the best part of my summer, personally. I was so full of joy, I had such great peace, & my heart was singing to be getting the amazing opportunity to travel again. If I made enormous amounts of money, I would make it a HABIT to travel, both domestically as well as internationally. It is so rewarding, so fulfilling, so enlightening, so exciting. And so exhausting, but so so worth it. I am grateful beyond words that we had the opportunity to GO & that we chose to do just that. The memories gained from an experience like that are so valuable to me. Getting to travel the globe with my husband, my girls & my parents (!!!) was such a treat. I really hope that we will get to do a multi-generational trip again someday. I am blessed. BLESSED.

“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” -Rabindranath Tagore

It has been wonderful for my heart to reminisce over the past few months of my life by getting to look back on the highlights from a great trip. Sometimes in life, regardless of what is going on in TODAY, looking back & reflecting with thanksgiving in our hearts & on our lips is significant. It can shift things into perspective for today. It can sometimes be a simple reminder of the sweetness of life. It can push us to reach higher, go deeper. Reflection & meditating on the gift that life has been up until this very breath in our lungs is something we hurry too often, or skip over completely because we are too busy & have too much on our plates to deal with. But taking the time to reflect & BE GRATEFUL is well worth it. It has been a healing balm for my soul to walk down memory lane. Not because my life is insanely hard or because I am in the depths of despair or anything like that, but just because it reminds my heart of the goodness in my life. The gift that it is to be alive & to get to eat gelato in Italy with my 3 year old. Things like that. I encourage you to reflect on the last few months of your own life & see what it has offered you. Find the sweet things. The little moments, or the big ones for that matter! It is ALL valuable because it is part of your story. It has helped shape who you are in this exact moment in time. Reflect. It’s good.

“Meditation is the soul’s perspective glass.” -Owen Feltham

I’m glad I did.

My heart is full.

 

Cheers,

Katie.