England – Owls, The Chunnel, and McDonald’s…. Oh My!

After my success in traveling to England on my own in 1999, I decided to do it again in 2000. This time, my mom came with me. The trip started a bit rough. We were flying from Seattle to London via Washington Dulles. The trick was that we would catch a train in London up to Scotland for the first few days of our trip. But that, of course, depended on getting to London in time.

Sadly, that was not the case. We arrived in Washington Dulles to find our flight delayed. I don’t remember how delayed, but it was significant enough that we started talking about alternate plans. While we were waiting, I jumped on the phone (this is before there were smartphones and free wifi) and calling hotels in London looking for ways to use my points for hotel stays. At the same time, I was trying to cancel reservations in Scotland. In hindsight, we probably just could have caught a later train to Scotland or even flown there. But, neither of us knew that.

I finally found a Hyatt in London where I could use my points and so we adjusted our plans to spend extra time in London. Oh no… twist my arm to spend more time in London!

We arrived much later than planned, so we were exhausted, but we settled into our London hotel. Over the next few days, we explored many of the common touristy things in London – the British Museum, the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, and so on. If you’ve never been to London, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a great starter for anyone wanting to do international travel.

Partway through (after we were supposed to have been coming back from Scotland), we switched hotels and moved to the Marriott County Hall. I love this hotel. I try to stay here whenever I go to London. It’s not always an option because it can get costly, but it’s worth a try.

We also had train tickets to visit some areas outside of London. We spent one day at the Canterbury Cathedral, another at Windsor Castle, and another in Stratford Upon Avon. In Stratford Upon Avon, we attended an owl demonstration. I captured one of my favorite pictures of my mom.

It was also during this demonstration that I realized I wanted a digital camera. I took so many photos of owls swooping down but had to get them all processed to see which ones actually worked! My next trip, and every trip after that, I have had a digital camera.

On this trip, we also got to go up in the London Eye. I know that now seems boring but, at this time, it had only been open for a few months. It was quite an experience that we’d never had before. The views are amazing!

We also decided to take a day trip to Paris via the Chunnel. This is a modern marvel for me. The tunnel goes 380 feet below sea level and, at its lowest point, is 250 feet below the sea bed. I’m still amazed at how they built it.

Anyway, our big point of going to Paris for the day was to see The Louvre. Not only did we want to see the art, but we also wanted to go to the cafe there. My dad worked at a French Camp in the San Juan Islands and one of the counselors (or maybe the dishwasher?) also worked at the cafe in The Louvre. Based on this recommendation, we thought we’d try it out for lunch.

We decided to do a hop-on-hop-off bus tour around the city, knowing it would stop at The Louvre. As we listened to the narrative in the headphones, imagine our surprise when we learned that The Louvre was closed on Tuesdays! I still can’t understand how such a major attraction can be closed one day a week. So when the bus arrived at The Louvre, we got off and found the place deserted.

We did ride around the bus further and saw Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, etc. But it was still a let down of the day.

I would be remiss if I didn’t share the McDonald’s part of the story. My mom loves reminding people that the only place we ate while in Paris was McDonald’s. This came up because we rode around the bus for a while and saw all of the sites. I was super hungry and I get really cranky when my blood sugar drops. This was one of those cases. I needed to eat and didn’t care where. So we went into the first place we found which was McDonald’s.

We made our way back to London that evening. We got to see some of Paris, but my mom and I have since been back separately to enjoy more of it.

The rest of the trip was similar to the first part of enjoying all that London has to offer. We saw the sights, saw a show, and ate fish & chips. A typical and great trip to London!