With any long trip across the world, there's always a chance of a long layover in a random city. London happened to be that long layover for us newlyweds on our way to South Africa. There's a slightly pricier option to stay in the airport and rent a sleeping cabin (yes, those exist!), while other more courageous souls leave to take advantage of the opportunity. I'm sure you can guess which type of people we are. Our travel agent warned us that we would probably only do this one trip and never again, it's still up for debate if she was right.
We arrived in London at 10am GMT time, but 4am CST time. Let's be honest, I didn't sleep more than 3 hours on the 7 hour ride over. Standing in a long customs line to leave the airport, I think I could have curled up in a ball on the floor. Once we were through customs, we hopped on the Heathrow Express that I had bought tickets for previously. After napping on the half hour ride, we arrived in Paddington Station to see the bustling city come to life. From Paddington we hopped on a subway that was full to the brim of University students, nothing like the L in Chicago we were used to. I was almost shoved out of closing door!
I finally started to shake off my jet lag and get excited.
London looked exactly as I imagined... foggy.
Once at the Embankment stop, we crossed the Thames river over to the London Eye. (I highly recommend buying the anytime-of-day fast passes for the Eye, as we passed loads of tourists waiting to board right to the front of the line.) Within the first half hour of being in downtown London, we could see everything.
After about 20 minutes, we were itching to de-board our capsule and move onto other sites. Crossing back over the Thames we passed the Big Ben, currently under construction (it will be silent for years!). We briefly stared at it's beauty then kept walking, as we had no time to spare.
Enjoy a cliche photo of me next to a telephone booth.
Basically our entire goal was to find a good pub with classic English fare, and we were lucky to snag a table at Fuller's Kitchen - Ale & Pie. The Brits drink their beer on tap at room temperature, so the beer was an adjustment, but the pot pies were out of this world. London is not a cheap place we found out. Our meal ended up being about 50 pounds, which at the time translated to $60 on our credit card statement.
We stopped at another pub to have a beer on the way back. There is a snogging corner where couples can sit in a private booth to enjoy their drinks. I don't know why U.S. pubs haven't done this.. it is quite adorable. We talked to the bartender about how we were struggling to enjoy the luke-warm beer. He laughed as I assume he does with all Americans.
We hopped on the subway, then the Heathrow Express, and were through customs in plenty of time, with another country scratched off our map.
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