Surely it never rains in London

London had a long hot spell this summer, right before we left in fact, so why on earth would I think to pack an umbrella? Our second day in London was definitely one of those, if I had packed it we wouldn't have needed it, but since I didn't, we did kind of days.

We thought about getting up early to see the changing of the guard, and decided to put it on our list to do next time.

While admiring the outside of Westminster Abbey one of the tour guides told us that we could go in for free. There are a lot of people that are buried there that I didn't know about, Handle, Darwin and Sir Issac Newton. My (I'm not sure how many greats) grandma Mary Queen of Scotts is also buried there, so I went up to say hello and found out why I love canopy beds so much as she is buried under one.

The tube in London is undergoing renovations to become more wheelchair accessible. One of the few stations that is already accessible is near Westminster so we decided to take the tube out to the Tower of London. Well I read the map wrong and the station that is at the Tower of London connects to an accessible side station...by stairs. So we got back on the tube ( we had learned that all day passes serve us best from our days in DC) and headed over to Kings Cross ( of Harry Potter fame) to transfer to a different line. However when we got there the lifts were out so we headed back to Westminster and got on a different line. While having our adventure underground the skies opened up.

We walked through the rain a bit until we got to a restaurant to eat while we waited for the rain to let up a bit, it didn't. So we decided to go for it, we walked across the Tower Bridge and over to the Tower of London. The Tower of London isn't totally accessible, something about it being really old, there were a few things that we could see, luckily one of them was the crown jewels, unfortunately they don't let camera's in, but there is some cool stuff in there! There is also a remnant of an ancient Roman city wall, it was built in the late 2nd or early 3rd century

Once we were done there we headed back, in our ponchos that a nice lady gave us, to take a ride on the London Eye. Now for those of you who know me I am not a big fan of heights, last year at Disneyland while on the Ferris wheel wee one had to console me. There are no restraints on this, you are in a glass capsule that rotates as the wheel goes around. I hear the view is great, I stayed in the middle clamped to the bench, Matt took pictures. (video to come)

Across the pond

We took the nigh time flight from New York to London, mostly so I could "sleep" as we flew over the ocean. I don't like driving over water, let alone flying over it. Matt said it was a good thing I was sleeping because as we approached Heathrow Airport he watched a big plane fly over us.

Going through customs was interesting, as we waited our turn we watched as a lady had her story torn apart, luckily our story was easy, 3 days for site seeing, and can you recommend the best place for fish and chips?

London is frantically getting ready for the Olympics in 2012, which turned out great for us because they are getting everything wheelchair friendly. All of the new taxis are wheelchair accessible,they look like bowler hats .

We arrived at our hotel, praying that they would have a room that was available for early check in, we only had to wait about 20 min. After we freshened up we went out to explore London.

Our hotel was right off of Picadilly Circus, and within walking distance of most of the sites.

This is the hotel we originally picked out, but Marriott didn't want to play nice. It's the old Parliament building. The big ferris wheel thing is called the London Eye, and yes we went on it ( pictures in the next post).

We were so tired that we just walked around and planed out the next day. We walked across the pedestrian bridge ( the one that gets taken out in Harry Potter) just to realize that there is only an elevator at one end so we walked back.

We had asked the concierge at the hotel where the best fish and chips could be found, well we apparently didn't listen very well and got lost on our way to find it. We found a pub and as we have learned over the years, if you want really good food, find a pub! We ordered the variety plate and some cokes, and realized that the cokes on this trip were going to be few and far between, and that we would come to miss refills.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel to take a quick nap before heading back out. 2 hours later we went and found McDonalds. We just had to try it to see if it was the same as back home.

The burgers are better, but alas the fries are not.

3 hour tour

The best way to see Manhattan when you have very few hours in which to "see" Manhattan is a river cruise. You get to see the majority of the sites and you get to do it sitting down ( although Matt always does his site seeing sitting down...)

We opted for the 3 hour tour that takes you all the way around the island, and we had just enough time to head down in the morning take the tour and head to the airport.

Here are some of the highlights

Many a person learned what bird strike is when a plane landed on the Hudson River a few months before we went to New York. Although us Eddie Izzard fans have known for a long time what bird strike is.

The boat we were on was one of the first boats to reach the plane. They were backing out to start the tour when the plane landed. Here is a picture of where it landed.

This is Pier 54, where the Titanic would have docked if she had made it to New York, the pier is said to be haunted

This is the very first cell phone tower, the town of Hoboken NJ has a cool history, the first cell phone call, the first documented baseball game, and the oreo cookie just to name a few.













Ellis Island, it's alot bigger and nicer then I thought it would be. It's crazy to imagine the
amount of people who went through here, after leaving so much behind praying to find a better life.










We didn't have enough time this trip to go to Liberty Island, but you get an awesome view on the island tour. The crown had just reopened the day before, it had been closed since September 11th.

The United Nations building was built with windows on both sides to depict the transparity that they wanted to have

Not exactly the best place to advertise for the best locations and lowest prices on hotels. I would not want to stay there!

The House that Ruth built, in all it's glory... before they tear it down.

And the very best tidbit of information I learned on the 3 hour tour was about the Intrepid. This loverly Aircraft Carrier from WWII was built in 5 months by women. It takes the boys almost 5 years to build one now.

Fireworks

We were lucky enough to be on the 28th floor of our hotel that over looked the Hudson River. They moved the fireworks over to the Hudson this year because it's the 400th anniversy of when Hudson showed up to check things out, really I think they realized they could get more people to the show ( New Jersey) if they did it from the Hudson and not the East river.


We were able to see part of the show from our hotel room, which was better then sitting in the crowd of 2 million ( that's what they estimated ). Please enjoy a part of the show!

Take me out to the ball game...

5 years ago one of Matt's long time dreams was realized when he got Yankee's tickets for Christmas, 2 months later we got a call about wee one, and the tickets were given to his boss when we moved back home.

When we were planning out trip we realized that the flights would work better if we had a stop over in New York. As luck would have it the Yankee's were playing at home on the 4Th of July, and really what's more American then spending the 4Th of July at a baseball game?

The "easiest" way to get to the stadium from our hotel was to take the subway, and the subway in NY is accessible as long as you know where to find the hidden elevators. Once we had discovered the one by our hotel ( it was in the bus terminal) we asked one of the attendants the best way to get to the stadium. As she was telling us to go out to Jesery and back some nice gentleman said " Follow us, we are going to the stadium"

Now there are some rules that must be adhered to when you attend a baseball game. You must eat a hot dog, peanuts and smile as you pay $8 for the coke, $10 if you want the cool cup. 2 hot dogs, a sprite and coke ( both in the cool cups) and a bag of peanuts later we watched as the game goes into extra innings. Praying that we would not lose to a Canadian team on the 4Th of July the Yankee's win it in the bottom of the 12Th.

A Wicked good time in New York

Our vacation o' vacations started out in New York City. We were unable to get tickets to Wicked when it came here, but fate smiled upon us,

Fate: " Why see it there when you can see it on Broadway for 1/4 of the price?

US: "Good point, we shall see it on Broadway"

Landing at JFK was a lot of fun , in fact we prayed that it would be the most "fun" we would have on the trip(alas it was not, stay tuned). For some reason JFK thinks it is a good idea to land planes not by a gate, but out on the tarmac and bring people movers to take you to a gate. We were one of the few lucky ones that got a people mover sans stairs.

We got to our hotel with enough time to freshen up and head off to find something to eat before the show. There is a loverly place called Natsumi right across the street from the Gershwin Theater. We ordered the managers special, a plate as big as the table full of sushi, we highly recommend it.

Now we didn't know a lot about Wicked, we just knew it was the story of the Wicked Witch. We laughed so hard at some points that we are going to have to go see it again so we can hear the things we missed.

3 more sleeps.....

And we will be on our big big vacation, as wee one calls it. I'll try to update our blog while we are gone with pictures and such!