Skip to main content

31 Days of Traveling to Europe: Day 13 - A Rainy Day in London






These stairs led us to the lobby of our hotel and to our next adventure in London. First stop was St. Paul's Cathedral.











We climbed 257 steps to the Whispering Gallery. After a brief rest, we climbed 119 really skinny steps to the Stone Gallery, which is the outdoor part of the dome. We opted out of the 152 steps to the Golden Gallery and instead made our way down to the Crypt.

It was street market day on Portobello Road so we went back to Notting Hill to check it out. We were expected something out of the movie "Notting Hill" but instead found shoulder-to-shoulder people and no Hugh Grant strolling the streets.







We picked up our tickets for the hop-on/hop-off tour bus at Piccadilly Circus and made our way to the Tower of London. The weather turned miserable here with a steady downpour. We ducked into buildings as often as we could and sought refuge in the cafeteria where we had our second plate of fish and chips.



















My sister had seen a street sign on her previous trip to London but hadn't had the chance to take a photo of it. After some searching, we finally found the sign.










After watching the Masterpiece Theatre series "Mr. Selfridge", I added his department store to my to-do list. We followed people carrying the famous yellow Selfridges & Co. bags and finally found the store.








Exhausted and soggy after a day in the rain, we headed back to our hotel with a carryout dinner and made plans to see as much of London as possible on our last day here.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Five Minute Friday: Roots

Lisa-Jo Baker (lisajobaker.com) hosts a weekly event on her blog called "Five Minute Friday". The rules are 1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking. 2. Link back here and invite others to join in. 3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community.. So here's my first try at this. Today's topic was Roots. Roots – I think about my grandparents who lived on a farm until my grandfather’s diabetes worsened and they moved to a town with a hospital nearby. My father still says he wished he could have kept that farm. I think of my grandmother who was a widow for 20 years. Every year she would stand over my PaPa’s grave, wishing she was with him. I think of my parents, a product of those grandparents, how hard my father worked to put 2 girls through...

Five Minute Friday: Expect

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at  http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/ . This week's word is Expect.   I'm going to admit something. When I pray, I expect God to do what I ask. I'd like to think that is a sign of faith but in some ways, it is a sign of arrogance, like I know what is best for me. I picture him up in heaven like the above photo, signalling to the angels and saying like a benevolent Captain Picard, "Make it so." I never stop to think about what's right or worse, what's God's will, I just ask away and expect to be granted my wish. I guess that means I see God as more of a fairy godmother than my heavenly father. It doesn't matter if it is little things like, "Please make the bathtub faucet quit leaking" or "Please make my aunt well." I expect my prayer to be answered. And for things like "Please send...

Five Minute Friday: Time

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/ . This week's word is Time. Sometimes time feels like this, like we are in it. Standing inside it, watching life pass by. It is so easy to get stuck in a time - in our pain, in our hurt. We hear the ache tick away in our head like a giant clock. Time, instead, is a gift. More time with family, more time to accomplish goals, more time to see the world. When you are hurting, it seems like time takes forever. One day turns into another day, turns into another day. When we hate a job, the five days of time that make up a work week seem to go on forever. But those five days are also a gift. Because these days, a job is not a guarantee. I want to see time as gift, not as a chore. I want to be on the other side of it, wishing there was more of it. Making the most of every hour, minute, and second instead of...