Back in April I had the fabulous opportunity to go to London for work. I invited my mom to come with me since she had never been. When my sister and I originally planned to take her to Poland we had changed to taking her to England but then settled on Iceland instead, so when this opportunity came up, I was happy to invite her. I told her she would be mostly on her own since I had to work, but she is quite good at managing public transportation here and seeing than they speak the English on London, I figured she would do pretty well.
The morning after I did the Yakima 25k race, we headed to the airport and off we went. We had a layover in Iceland, because it's is my favorite place in the world!
And then made our way to Heathrow.
We jumped on the Heathrow Express and landed ourselves at Paddington Station.
We walked from there to our hotel, which seemed to be in a somewhat swanky neighborhood seeing as the streets were lined with Porches, Mercedes, Feraris and Bentleys.
Once we settled in we headed back out and found a super cute pub and knoshed on some bangers and mash. I did not have them when I last came to London in 2000 and boy did I miss out!!!
We talked about Oiselle and running, she was planning on running the London marathon that weeekend which she did and scored a BQ qualifier I want to say in the sub 3:45 range. It was a super fun ending to an already eventful evening! Plus I was super excited to get back to the hotel and find that my mom had a wonderful day exploring all around!
We tried to to stay up until 8 but made it until 6:30. But were woken up at 8 anyway by someone entering our room! I was so disoriented an panicked that I called the front desk in a total haze only to be informed that they had come info for turn down service.
In the morning I headed out and had a hot pot for breakfast which was an unexpected combo of BBQ baked beans, ham and an egg.
I got on the tube and headed out to my first meeting. When I came out of the tube station I was surprised to see Big Ben right infront of me! It was RIGHT THERE!!!
I then walked across the street and met up with these pleasant guys:
My meeting took place in the basement vault of an old bank which was surreal and a little scary.
Later that evening I went to an industry event at the Ham Yard Hotel at 1 Ham Yard. I laughed and laughed at that.
When I walked in I saw that there was another event going on too, for Every Mother Counts and Citizens of Humanity. This was a super surprise becauSe my Oiselle running team is very involved with Every Mother Counts, an amazing organization founded and run by super model extraordinaire, Christy Turlington, that strives to make pregnancy and childbirth safe for women all over the world. Turns out I ran into Ms Turlington on my way out of my event later that evening and she was absolutely lovely to meet and speak with.
Next morning I woke up to go meet with some other folks. They took me to an amazing lunch at a place called Sketch. We are the the Lecture Room & Library. Wow! I have never been anywhere so fancy! I'll let the photos do the talking!!
After Thursdays meetings and amazing lunch!!!! I was done with work.
I headed back to the hotel and met up with my mom. We headed out again and did some exploring.
When we got back to the hotel, I brought up an idea that some of the people I met with gave me - what if we went to Paris for the day? Paris? What? Of course! Why wouldn't we!!
So we booked our train tickets, tried to get a good night sleep and then woke up early to head to Paris for the day!
So the train was fun, but I must admit that there was no dramatic swoosh into a big hole in the English Channel. I don't know what I was thinkng but for some reason I figured we would see the water and then go down in it. Yeah. None of that.
Our trip was so last minute that when we got to Paris we had no idea what we were to do next.
So I tired to get some euros out of the atm only to have my credit card denied... I had told them I was going to be in Iceland and England but not France so when I wound up in France - DENIED.
Luckily mom's still worked!
But I took this photo of the train station sign so worst case scenario, if we were lost in France, I could show someone this photo and hopefully they could get us back.
We hopped on a bus and headed to the Eiffel Tower!! I had no idea it was so huge!!!! The line to go up it was long so I tried to convince mom to just walk up the stairs. Thank goodness she didn't take me up on that, becauSe we walked down it from the second observation deck and it was a long long way!!!!
At the bottom we had lunch. Hotdogs in Paris are weird. I still don't know how they got those in that baguette without cutting it open.
Then we walked around a ton.
We came across the petite palace and found this inside:
An we smacked on this tasty espresso and these macarons.
And I stood in the middle of the road to get this photo:
And taking the bus was an excellent idea because we saw a ton of stuff! No idea what any of it was, but it was all amazing!!
Made it back to the train station, then back to London, back to our hotel...
And then we took a taxi to our new hotel!
The next day, we went back to Kings Cross station for a photo op at the totally staged platform 9 3/4
And then headed to the British Library which was super cool. I didn't really want to go, but mom did and I am so happy we went! It was amazing to see some of those books that the monks had written and drawn from so many years ago!!
Then we went to my favorite museum of all time, the Brittish Museum! I had gone on my last visit, but I was excited to take my mom! We saw the Rosetta Stone!
And penises! Or lack there of...
Why were all the penises missing?
I don't always sit around naked, but when I do, I rest my frank and beans on my foot.
We saw tye other side go Big Ben, parliament and the London eye.
And west minster abbey.
And celebrated with some fish and chips, beers and martins!
After 40+ miles of walking, seeing so many amazing sites, talking to many people (and not being able to understand most of them), it was time to go home.
But not without first having another layover in Iceland.
Hours later, it was home sweet home.
Can't wait to go back, hoping to take Eric next time!
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