Day 1 & 2

I finally made it! After only 2 hours of sleep and 33 hours of crazyiness, I made it successfully through my first two days. After departing LAX and surviving a 10 hour flight (which feels like 24) I landed in London and hopped right on the tube and headed over to King’s Cross Station. And I bet you can guess what pictures I took there. We headed out into the city and saw so much stuff that it might bore you if I listed it all here. I’ll just mention the highlights. I walked through all the major squares of the city including Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar’s Square and many of the surrounding parks, some of which are considered royal. Who would have known? I got to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, which reminded me of my old marching band days in high school. I saw Westminster Abbey and Westminster Palace (Palace of Westminster?) and took plenty of pictures. Just as we sat down for lunch though, an unexpected rain shower visited us. It was short lived and by the time we came back outside, skies were bright and sunny. We kept on walking and finally made it to St. Paul’s Cathedral where I spent a good bit of time sitting down and relaxing before continuing on (the very long) journey to the Tower Bridge. I think the lack of sleep finally got to me, because I swore, as I was walking, I was falling asleep. Every time I sat down, I feel asleep. After seeing the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, a pretty cool fortress, I decided that my poor little feet had had enough. We hopped back on the tube and headed back to King’s Cross/St. Pancras Station to get ready to board our Eurostar train to Brussels! In an unrelated note, I found out that I am officially allergic to pine nuts, or possibly a pesticide that they are treated with. As soon as I laid my head back, I was asleep for almost the entire 2 hour ride. And now I’m in Brussels! It looks like it had just poured outside, so thankfully we missed that. But currently, I’m laying on my bed, typing this up, and most certainly thinking about sleep. My body needs to recover from the estimated 20 miles I walked today. But tomorrow is a bright and early day and can hardly wait!