Anniversary Trip to London

We began our anniversary trip to London by driving to the Huntingdon Train Station and buying round trip tickets and an Underground pass for the day.  We left Huntingdon, and after seeing lots of different landscapes, we arrived at King's Cross Station.  There, we connected to the Underground and after a quick orientation on how to use the maps, we started our journey towards Trafalgar's Square.  We made it without a hitch and started wandering around downtown London.

Our first stop was the National Gallery.  We've been to art museums before, but this was in another league.  The rooms had that ‘ancient artwork’ smell to them and the ceilings were probably 30 feet high.  We went through each room looking and commenting to each other on what we liked and disliked.  Since we really aren't huge art nuts, most of our comments were ooohhhs and aaahhhhs.

We stopped and ate lunch at a restaurant in the square, and I sampled, of course, their bacon cheese burger.  Not bad, British bacon isn't my favorite, but I can handle it.  There were lots of tourists in the restaurant.  We noticed a few other Americans there by their accents as they walked passed.  The people next to us were French. We also walked around Trafalgar Square some more and saw the Admiralty Arch.

We then walked towards the National Portrait Gallery.  Since we watched lots of British history DVDs when we first arrived in England, we actually knew who a lot of these people were.  Huge rooms were dedicated to a time frame or a royal family.  There was even a pop culture exhibit too.

It was getting late and we wanted to see the river before we left, so we trusted my excellent orienteering skills and starting walking in the exact opposite direction from the river.  I kept thinking to myself that it was just around the corner, or just behind that building.  Nope, straight backwards from where we started.  Our little diversion did pay off though.  We stopped and had gelato at a small cafe along the road, and Lindsay got her fix for the time being.  We ended up in Piccadilly Circus and saw the legendary Sanyo sign and got to do a bit of window shopping in that area.  We followed the Underground sign and found a good route back to King's Cross. 

We had to wait awhile at the train station for the next train to Huntingdon, so we bought a couple hot chocolates and drank them while we waited.  We forgot that the English don't use as much sugar in their sweet drinks, so we were unpleasantly surprised by the bitter taste.  Oh well, it was still chocolate.

It was dark when we got back to Huntingdon to our very lonely Cooper.  He was glad to see that we made it home safely.  All in all, a wonderful anniversary trip.  We hope next year can be even more exciting!

~Blake