Let's Start at the Very Beginning

So this is how it's going to go. I have SO much to share concerning Europe, most of which is for my own record keeping. This is coming at you city by city and will take a bit to get it all posted.
So we will start at the beginning: London.

Day One:

Thursday, September 10 was the day I had been looking forward to for the past six months. I, along with my mother and best friend, were to embark on a life long dream of visiting Europe. We met at the airport bright at early at 7:30 to start our travel filled day. We traveled our first leg to Houston (with delays, rough landings, poor service, etc) and rushed to get to our next leg to Heathrow (LONDON!). The flight wasn't bad and a short 9 hours later we were across the pond with our whole trip ahead of us!

The one downer? While waiting for our luggage at the baggage claim out came mom's, we waited, waited, and waited some more and my bag never arrived. We went to file a claim and the bag wasn't even in their record as being sent to London. Perfect. Since it was the start of the day and I didn't really need it, I took assurance that it would be on the next flight out and at my hotel that night (positive thinking right?).
We headed out on our adventure of London. We bought our Underground Tube passes, found the right train, and headed to our hotel. It was about a 40 minute train ride, with a short walk to the hotel at the end. It was lucky for Mom that my bag didn't arrive because she then could use me as her "ass" to carry her (heavy) suitcase up the many flights of stairs of the tube (I have earned the name of "ass" many many trips ago and it has just kinda stuck, kind name isn't it?). I was pooped when we got to the hotel and it was all of about 10:00 AM.

We headed out to keep us awake, get over our jet lag, and start seeing the amazing sights of London. We took the tube to the London Bridge and started our walk along the Thames River. It was so fun to see so many fun and different things, but the London Bridge was one of my favorite things we saw.
Randomly walking along the river walk, we found this over sized (a bit of an understatement) AstroTurf furniture. I loved it!
As we continued our walk we reached our much anticipated destination. Big Ben and the Parliament house. Seeing it from across the river was so much fun. It is always so fun to finally see things you have seen in so many pictures, movies, etc.
Another favorite of London was the phone booth's, you all know and love them, and we actually got to use them. They are just adorable.
We continued our walk up Whitehall Road, which is the road that is filled with government building and famous sights. We even stumbled upon 10 Downing Street (you know, the prime minister's house). We ended up at Trafalgar Square, did some souvenir shopping, and caught a double decker bus back to our hotel.
We ended our night with walking many many blocks to find something to eat, and just ended up at the grocery across the street from our hotel. Being a picky eater in a foreign country is never easy.

The next morning we headed out on our city tour. It was our first dose of being part of a tour group. We stopped by several sights and enjoyed seeing much of the city by bus. We stopped by this adorable high end shopping mall, filled with wooded store fronts, security guards called "beetles" (who make the experience seem like a movie or Disneyland).
The next stop on our tour was back at Westminster Abbey, the Parliament House, and Big Ben (who I think we fell in with). The weather was beautiful, the surrounding were picture postcard cute, and it was a perfect day.
The last stop on this tour was for the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. As we walked to the palace we past the guards preparing, the policemen on horse back, and the cute London taxis.
We waiting out front for the change to being and soaked up every moment of this amazing adventure.
That afternoon we opted for a tour of Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace. Kensington palace was where Princess Diana lived with her boys. Since it is no longer being lived in, it is much more of a museum. Buckingham Palace on the other hand is the working palace of the Queen and is only open for 6 weeks of the year while she is gone. It just so happened to be while we were there. Walking through the palace was amazing and crazy to think that people still live like that, in the old-fashion luxury.
One thing on our "To Do" list was ride a taxi. I was so excited about this! Not that a taxi ride is really all that exciting, but the cars are cute and driving on the wrong side of the road through the crazy traffic is just exciting.
We ended our night at a little Italian restaurant near Leister Square. It was so good and just located on this little pedestrian street. We walked around after dinner back toward Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circle, and Charring Cross.
We took one last taxi ride back to our hotel to get ready for our early morning departure the next day for our next destination: Amsterdam.