So Long, London…

I’m am back from my trip and there is so much to talk about.  Let’s just start with; Holy Fuck…what a city!
I’ve been to many cities in my travels and I have never experienced anything quite like London.
Landing in Heathrow by myself was something I was certain would throw me into an anxiety attack tail spin, but after 13 hours in flight I think my body decided to give me a break and just let it be for once.  The trick with flying internationally into an airport you don’t know…just follow the crowd.   The crowd and cool Underground (the tube) signs sent me to the right location where I found my half sister I had never met.  That’s another story, no time for that today.   She had been to London once before so she gave me the lowdown on the Underground and off we went.

The first day of taking the underground was a lot of me looking at the map, taking pictures of the map, asking my sister “you sure this is the right one?” to which she said, “if it’s not, we get off and get on another.”  I had planned on kinda getting some sleep when we got into London, but didn’t factor in the fact that the hotel wouldn’t allow us in until  after 2pm.  We dropped off our luggage and honestly that first few hours were a blur.  I was exhausted because I am one of those people that can’t sleep on a plane, so I decided to just jack my system up on coffee.  HOLY FUCK…the coffee was unbelievable!
Now I know when I went to Ireland and I tried to explain that shit tasted different over there and no one back in America would believe me…unless of course they had left this country and tried out another for size.   The coffee…they did something right at every single shop, Pret a Manger, lounge in the airport.   The pastries are something I could write about for about 3 days and still not be able to describe.

The first day was full of museums and I tried to gather my fuzzy, muddled, sleep deprived brain into absorbing it all, but the minute you walk into the British Museum it just makes you forget how to breathe and form sentences. I was certain I had never seen anything so magnificent ( I was wrong, that was just the FIRST place that took my breath away and made me cry a bit)
I tried to remember all the videos I had watched on this one museum alone, but all I could come up with was, “I wanna see the Rosetta Stone”  and I did…but mostly from behind it because it as a crush of people wanting to see it as well.  It was at that moment that I realized that I was just another tourist in this city and I could elbow my way to the front and get a good look see or I could look at it through the wonder of other’s eyes.  Standing back behind the stone I watched how just seeing something that means so much to the world could light up someone.
I did eventually get in a good stare, but after that moment I spent a lot of the time watching how other people responded to the things that I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to witness.
Next on the list was The V & A museum and honestly that was so much fun because we decided we wanted to just see what we wanted and not to tour the whole place.  Patrice wanted to see the cool stuff we had sent back and forth to each other on Instagram and I just wanted to stare at old photos and tapestries.    We walked 8 and half miles the first day and I personally think it was searching for this crazy escalator (totally worth it!)

After a 15 minute nap and hotel check in we headed out again to the place that made me cry. The National Museum.  I was nervous about it because this was the one I had wanted to see more than all the others.  This was the home of all the greats.  Monet, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Van Eyck and well a million more.

finish off tomorrow!!