European Adventure Day 5: Marching Like Soldiers!

Missed an earlier chapter or need a recap?

Landed here because you searched for an image of St. Edward’s Crown and/or the Sovereign Sceptre? Click here to go to scans of postcards I purchased at the Tower of London since you can’t take pics inside. Before you post the pics on your site, consider (a) crediting the Tower of London, (b) linking to the images here or (c) both. Thanks.

Ah, London. Land of the obvious. “Look right” on the pavement. Arrows for pedestrians. Restaurants named “Eat.” And tourists at the Changing the Guard Ceremony who say things like, “Look at the soldiers. They’re marching like soldiers!” with great glee.

We made it to the palace for the guard thing. Penny snagged a spot for us at the front right of the palace while I set off for 10 Downing Street to grab a photo. Guard change start at 11:30. We were there by 10:15 – plenty of time to check in with Gordon Brown. Or so I thought until I got a text from Penny at around 10:30 saying she couldn’t hold my spot much longer. Oh well, Gordon, next time. I made it back to the palace, and we settled in for the wait.

European Adventure Day 4: Like Starting Again

Back in London, and it’s like a second chance at vacation (for details of the first half of the trip, start here.

Waking up, the plan was to walk through Piccadilly Circus on the way to the British Museum (check), tour St. Paul’s Cathedral (half-check), have tea at Fortnum & Mason (half-check) and take a Jack the Ripper tour (no check).

This may have been the day the travel caught up to us as did an overall lack of sleep. Did I mention I’m sick? What was a moderate cold has blossomed into something that reduces my ability to breathe, comes with a cough and increases my likelihood of snoring to 100%. It keeps Penny awake and I don’t sleep that well either. I feel like Patient Zero.

Piccadilly Circus

European Adventure Day 1 – Big Ben, Parliament

Missed the first installment? Click here.

Weather was a little brisk as we walked from the Underground to the hotel. It got more so as we wandered down Piccadilly to kill time before a room was available. So much so that killing time turned into a futile search for a heavy coat or gloves or anything to lessen the sting of the wind. And, hey, was that sleet?

European Adventure Day 0 – Wrong Yet So Right

I wrote all of the England-France blogs by hand while I was there. I’m leaving the tense as originally written when I type up the posts.

I’m about a mile above the Atlantic, flat on my back. This feels so weird, yet so so right.

When we got our boarding passes in Philadelphia, Penny and I realized we were no longer sitting next to each other. We were both in first class though, which made me happy. For the return trip, I won’t be so happy. Anyway … after a pointless, pathetic snack of fried cheese somewhere at the airport, we headed back to the gate. The agent said she couldn’t do anything about our seats. Oh well, we both planned to sleep for most of the overnight flight and did we really need to sit next to each other when we were going to spend six days together?

View of the center pod

Then we boarded the plane. It took a second for the odd configuration to sink in. We had scored one of the planes renovated for lie-flat seats. We couldn’t sit next to each other because there was only one pod along the windows.

Pod’s the best word for it. The angle of the seat, the frame – all very podlike.

Coming Soon

Watch this space!

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You don’t want to miss it!

Your pulse will race as you read the thrilling adventures of Penny and Tammy as they travel to London and Paris and back to London.

Your heart will pound as the sisters brave rain, wind, cold, sleet and more (much much more) rain.

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Follow along as a survivor of the perilous journey* takes you inside the mysteries of far-off England and France.

* Spoiler alert – everyone survives.