London Town

This weekend I began my month of travels with a short trip to London to see my dad who happened to be there on business! We were SO lucky that the timing worked out. I began my first solo European trip by waking up at 5 am on Saturday morning in order to catch the 730 Chunnel train to London. I was bleary eyed and quite frazzled but luckily managed to make it onto the train just in time for departure (I had to deal with the early morning and unreliable Paris metro, and three ticket retrieving machines that wouldn’t identify my non-European credit card.)

After a quick and enjoyable 2.5 hour train ride I met my dad at St. Pancreas station on what turned out to be a very cold and windy October day. We managed to fit in a LOT of sightseeing. First we went to the National Gallery, thinking it was the National Portrait Gallery and upon realizing our mistake, quickly left and found what we were really looking for. We walked around the National Portrait Gallery for about an hour – we followed British History from Henry the VIII all the way to an entire room dedicated to Twiggy! After the museums we took a bus tour around the city, and got off around Oxford Circus. For lunch my dad managed to remember the name of, and navigate the cab to, one of his favorite pubs from when my parents lived in London. The Grenadier was down a really small side street and had amazing fish and chips which I had for lunch, and according to my dad, Bloody Mary’s which hadn’t changed in 20 years! After lunch we walked down to Buckingham Palace (which my dad insisted was “just the carriage house”) and then to the Thames River where we caught a boat tour which took us past London Tower and London Bridge and then finally to Canary Wharf, a little ways out of the city, where my dad was staying.















Before dinner we had tickets to see Sister Act in the West End. The story line was the same as the movie (which I had seen but my dad had not) but all of the music was original and it turned out to be a really good show!! After the show we found an Indian restaurant for dinner where they informed us that we either had the option of chicken or duck dinner, we got one of each as well the Indian version of crepes, I think. Luckily, the chicken “dinner” lived up to the high expectations I had as an Indian food first-timer! Finally we went for dessert at Garfunkel’s which was surprisingly hopping for midnight. After good American dessert food we were ready for bed.
So of course, I could not be in London without visiting the famous platform 9 & ¾ at King’s Cross Station… which just happened to be across the street from St. Pancreas! On our way to the train station Sunday morning I dragged my dad into King’s Cross and over to the platform where after A LOT of camera problems he snapped one of my favorite pictures, ever! What a great note to end my quick little London excursion on!