Europe Trip: London

I have been wanting to take Barry to London to see where my grandparents live and see the city for what seems like forever and we finally made it happen!  Since Brie was studying abroad in Barcelona, it worked out perfectly for us to spend a week in Europe and visit both places.  We planned this trip before Ty was born and since he was going to be about 3 months old when we planned to leave, we included him in all of our travel plans.

Traveling with a baby definitely has its perks…we were moved to the front of every line and were at our gate within 20 minutes of getting out of the car.  Plenty of time for selfies while we waited for our flight =)

That is Ty's "Now what?!?" face.  We left on a Wednesday afternoon and flew over night straight to London.  We flew British Airways which was the greatest!  They had this bassinet on board for Ty which worked out great because he is not a huge fan of being held.

When he wasn't sleeping, he happily hung out in my lap.  He did so great on the flight!

We arrived in London around 7:30 AM on Thursday and were greeted by Wita and Brie - I can't believe we went 5 months without seeing her!  Wita and Richard hired a taxi to take us on a quick drive through London before heading to their place a good ways out of the city.  We actually got to see a lot on our taxi tour.

We finally made it back to Benfleet, I couldn't wait for Barry to see where Wita & Richard live.  It used to be a water tower, but they renovated it and made offices and turned the top few floors into a flat with incredible views.

After some lunch and a quick nap, we headed out to a pub for some fish and chips with Richard's daughter, son-in-law and grandaughter.  

England also happened to be playing in the World Cup that night too so it was a fun atmosphere.  The pub we went to was so cute, I felt like I was eating in someone's living room.

Friday we got a late start, but once we got up and moving we headed down to Southend to eat lunch by the water.

I love Southend; its such a cool little town on the water with cute restaurants, a nice high-street and an amusement park on the pier.

That evening, some of Wita &  Richard's friends invited us over for dinner.  They renovated what used to be a barn on a beautiful piece of land with a view of the Thames River.  I don't remember exactly how old they said the barn was, but I remember Barry commenting that it was older than the US!!  Crazy.  Ty thoroughly enjoyed the evening too.

When we got back to the tower, Barry, Brie and I decided to go up to the top and check out the views.  It's incredible.  They rent out the top of it for antenna space to radio, TV, etc.

Saturday we took the train into London.  Ty loved the train.  He wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, only wanted to look out the window.

We saw the Tower Bridge, Tower of London and took the obligatory London photos.

We stopped for lunch, fish and chips of course, at Jamie Oliver's Union Jacks in Covent Garden.

We did A LOT of walking around and ended the day taking a cab to Harrod's before we called it a day.  It was a long day, but we got to see a lot of London.  Richard, unfortunately, took a pretty bad spill a few weeks before we got there so he wasn't able to join us in London, but him and Ty had some good quality time in the lift at the tower together.

Sunday, we had the chance to tour the British Diving Olympic Training Facility with a former co-worker of mine.  It was in a really pretty part of town and the facility was amazing.

After a wonderful lunch at a hotel in Southend we quickly grabbed our things, took one last photo by the tower…(we didn't forget about Ty, he was just sleeping in his car seat - pretty much what he did the entire time we were in London, he was the best little traveler!)

and just like that our time in London was over and we were off to Barcelona!