Well if you’ve followed any of our vacations you know that we like to try out the local hospitals. We’ve been to the ER on the Big Island of Hawaii, Maui, San Diego, even a weekend trip to SF wasn’t complete without a trip to Kaiser. Well they don’t have Kaiser in London as we discovered today. Jessica is still running a fever and her throat pain was getting worse. After walking (albeit in some very lovely snow flurries) into two medical clinics that don’t take walk-ins, we found the lovely Guy Hospital where Jess was seen within ten minutes of walking in, and our prescription was filled next door within 30 minutes. Don’t ask me what I paid...because I didn’t. I think they have like free healthcare or something and apparently it extends to sick tourists. Lucky us!
After we got Jess started on penicillin we walked right past The Shard - this amazing building that looks a lot like the TransAmerica building in SF. Here’s my panoramic shot.
Then we headed over to the London Bridge which to our relief was not falling down. It was delightful to walk across but that’s about it. There’s a lot of bridges that go over the Thames River so after you’ve seen a few they lose their luster. But a photo opp with my sick girl was still in order.
We met up with the rest of the gang who had already hit up the Borough Market, which is like The Hob from the Hunger Games, but with cooler stuff and what looked like pretty amazing food. Too bad we weren’t hungry. Check out this huge dish! Looks delicious!
Next we huddled in a warm Starbucks for the restroom and let’s be honest, to give everyone their WiFi fix. It’s so hard not having constant communication with our Telly’s!
Off to the Tower of London to see the Crown Jewels and some history about the monarchy in England. This queen was crowned waaaay back in ‘53! No pictures, didn’t allow them and didn’t want to get thrown in jail. The Tower Bridge is quite colored though isn’t it?
Hiking back to retrieve our luggage at Rachelle and Adrianna’s hotel made us a little jealous that their hotel was so fancy and nice. They even had a piano which Katie took to immediately and started playing for the guests. We relaxed for a while in their heat filled lobby.
Since it was rather cold outside and we wanted an Uber to the train station. We got separated and realized that someone (that would be me) didn’t have the wireless WiFi router and thus had no way of contacting the others in the group so oddly enough we found each other at none other than a nearby Starbucks. You know, because of the aforementioned free WiFi. God bless you Starbucks. Reuniting families while traveling abroad. (Next time I come to Europe, I’m dropping AT&T and getting Sprint which apparently has a great international plan).
A quick train ride followed by an even shorter bus ride (pictured above) and we were at the Luton airport north of London where was waited. And waited a bit more, because our flight was delayed due to the snow that had fallen this morning. We grabbed a light dinner at what appears to be a very disorganized airport, and waited a bit more. Then we found a vending machine that dispenses Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and all of a sudden the wait didn’t seem that bad anymore. We sat on the floor, in line to board our plane, ate ice cream, and waited for the crew to arrive so we could go somewhere.
Paris! Yes, we have landed in Paris (As you can see below, we got to walk UP to our plane out on the tarmac) and thought we would take the train to our condo, but alas it was now nearly midnight and some stranger approached us and offered all 9 of us a ride in his black Mercedes van...so how could we say no! Setting bad examples for our kids indeed, but also recognizing that it would be hard to murder all 9 of us, we met a lovely French taxi driver who let us use his phone, and delivered us right to our door for the agreed upon feee (which was about the cost of 2 Uber’s and we would have needed 3 for all of us). So win/win for everyone. It is late. We have an early alarm and will have many more tales to tell tomorrow as we pump Jess with more antibiotics and fill Grandma and Papa up with soda as we hit Disney Paris! Check out the ceiling in our apartment!!!
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