Day 1

London is a blur of grand Victorian buildings next to towering facades of glass and steel. People are always walking here-walking fast and with a purpose. Smartly dressed women who can rock culottes or red canvas shoes and confident men wearing sharp blue suits or pink shorts walk on narrow pavements - some on their phones, some chatting with friends and a lot of them, smoking. Tourists stop every now and then to marvel at the sights and take selfies. The red double decker buses make impossible turns through narrow streets that make taxis and cars envious. Every few blocks the Roundel announces the entrance to the lifeline of London, the Underground or the Tube as it is fondly called, to stations like Charing Cross Road, Piccadilly Circus, Marylebone, Embankment and Westminster. Restaurants, boutiques, brand name stores from all over the world, bespoke tailors and robe makers, hat stores and off-licenses all buzz with activity. 

As we make our way through the tourist highlights and learn how to eventually become residents, I invite you to come along on this adventure with me. Through these posts, you will experience the thrill and trials of an ex-pat family making their life in a new land, as well as learn some tips and tricks that you can use as travelers anywhere in the world. Check out the pages Tips for Travelers, London Checklist and Restaurant Reviews for practical information you can use and other stuff that will just convey my excitement and awe.

First, we start the tourist phase of our year in the United Kingdom. It took us two days of sleeping until 10 am to get rid of the jet lag. Arming ourselves with the Tube maps and Oyster Cards, we set out to explore this gem of a city. We joined the Londoners and tourists on their streets, walking on roads marked ‘look right’ or ‘look left’ right on the road at every intersection.  We took the Tube, ‘minding the gap’ and got off at Bond street station. This exits out to the fashionable Bond and Oxford Streets, throbbing with hundreds of  shoppers. The smaller streets off these two streets house some of London’s most expensive real estate. Red plaster buildings established in 1869, Victorian brick buildings adorned with iron-work on balconies sporting blue plaques  saying “ Man of Science Thomas Young lived here 1773-1829” and posh modern buildings of glass all stand side by side. With a little shopping out of the way, we were out of this area and on to see the most touristy of all London sights - the London eye. The London Eye is a mechanical marvel and it certainly looks like it. At an impressive 443 feet, it stands as Europe’s tallest Ferris wheel and awe-struck tourists sit in glass capsules as the wheel moves at 0.6 miles per hour. One rotation of the wheel takes about 30 minutes and it is good way to see the city’s crowded landscape from a different vantage point. We had bought standard tickets online but that did not save us much time as we still had to go through security. 

   

On the day we visited, true to London weather, the skies were cloudy and gray but we got a really good view. It is a fun activity to do with the kids.