I found a cheap flight through Ryan Air to London a couple of months ago and I'm soo glad that I did. It was such an easy and fun trip! Considering it was the first country that we visited where we didn't have to worry about a language barrier, it was actually quite relaxing.
We got into London late on Friday night and decided to stay at an airport hotel since we flew into London Stansted which is about 45 minutes outside of the city. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express which had an airport shuttle that just happened to be there right when we walked outside. We stayed down in the lobby for a little while and ordered some drinks at the bar(at least Jeff got one with alcohol) and we ran into some crazy Manchester United soccer hooligans! Haha! As I'm standing there at the bar holding Brayden, a guy just starts talking so loud right in my face about how Brayden is so handsome and "looks like a Manchester United Fan...yep, DEFINITELY Manchester!!". It definitely cracked me up!
We took the Stansted Express train the next day into Liverpool Station. Of course Brayden loved every bit of the ride. We took the "Tube" (subway) to Swiss Cottage where our hotel was. We decided to stay at a Marriott since Jeff still has reward points added up. Once we dropped off all of our stuff in our room, we were off to explore!! Before noon we had already seen Big Ben, Parliament, St. James Park, Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace. Brayden, on the other hand, did not see a lot of these things because he slept through most of it! :) Whenever we switched trains, we'd have to walk up and down steps and go up and down escalators (and Jeff would carry him in his umbrella stroller). I was amazed, but he slept through all of that, too.
When we got to Piccadilly Circus, it started to rain so we jumped into the first pub (St. James Tavern) that we could find and ended up having a delicious lunch. Jeff had fish and chips and I had British ham, eggs and chips. We walked around the Piccadilly Circus and Charing Cross area for a little while before the rain got on our nerves. We decided to head back to the hotel for awhile to relax then venture out somewhere around that area for dinner. We walked to a restaurant called The Engineer, which was in the Primrose Hill area. It was such a cute, little area with lots of shops and restaurants. The Engineer was delicious, too! I had a gnocchi and mushroom dish and Jeff got braised beef. Brayden had all of the above with a side of apple juice. :)
The next morning we headed out bright and early to Notting Hill. On Saturdays, they have a market on Portobello Road which unfortunately we missed. Being a Sunday a lot of the shops were closed, but there were still vendors out on the street. We went to Chipotle that day for lunch...yes, Chipotle! I knew that if I didn't get my fill of it while I had the chance that I would regret it. :) It was delicious, as always! The tortilla and cheese just weren't the same though. :)
We spent Sunday afternoon at Tower Bridge/Tower of London. We took the tour of the Tower of London which lasted about 50 minutes or so. Brayden did alright through it all mainly because we kept moving, and because I had Chipotle tortilla chips for him to snack on! Very neat place and I highly recommend going inside of the Tower of London. The "beefeaters" give very entertaining tours, too! We went back to the hotel and decided to try another place around there for dinner. We ate at a place called "The Queens". Very small place but delicious food! I had a wild mushroom and garlic risotto and Jeff got pork loin. I decided to splurge and get the white chocolate bread pudding with dark chocolate ice cream on top. Sooooo worth it! After dinner we burned some calories walking up Primrose Hill so that we could get some good pictures of the city at night. Probably the highlight of that night was Brayden, our very talented dancer. As we were walking down the hill, there were 3 young ladies walking up. Brayden ran in front of them and stopped to "strike a pose". He had his arms up in the air, showing off his fabulous dance moves, and just froze. One of the ladies imitated him and Brayden got the biggest kick out of it. He started running around and the girls kept imitating him....sooo funny how much of a ham he is! Of course, he tried to follow them once we started to walk back down the hill.
Overall, it was such a great trip and we were sad to leave. We've decided that we have to go back because there is just so much more to see!
