Amanda and Megan do Europe part 3- day 3 in London

Megan and I woke up and got ready for our 3rd day exploring London. We ate a delicious breakfast (pastries, fruit, porridge, juice and coffee) at our hotel (Hub by Premier Inn, near St. James Park) and set out to explore.

We walked to Big Ben and took some obligatory pictures, then crossed the bridge towards the London Eye. When asking around for advice about our trip pretty much everyone we talked to said "Don't bother doing the London Eye. It's boring, expensive, has long lines, and is not worth it." We decided to ignore everyone's advice and do it anyway. It was definitely overpriced at about 25 pounds each person, but I think if we hadn't done it "eye" would regret it my whole life. The lines to get tickets and then get on were pretty short. We only waited for about 30 minutes total. The ride was fun and had great views of the whole city for miles and miles. We took about a billion pictures and made a million "eye" jokes, such as "Eye love this view" and "Eye am so glad we did this" and "Who helped Grandma set up the Christmas village?" "eye!". (maybe not the last one...inside joke, you had to be there :-)

After Megan and "eye" got off the London Eye we walked towards The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. We stopped at a cute restaurant for a bowl of soup and more coffee. Our Europe trip will always be remembered as "that one time we ate a lot of soup". We got to the gallery (no entrance fee, yay!) and began viewing hundreds of beautiful works of art. There were so many classic works of art that I remember studying in school from artists that we all know and love such as Monet, Picasso, van Gogh, da Vinci, Raphael, and more. There was also tons of pictures depicting breastfeeding and I took a picture of every single one since I'm a big breastfeeding advocate and I loved seeing it depicted in so many beautiful paintings. It was so awesome to see so many of those masterpieces in person. When planning our trip we weren't even planning on going to the National Gallery but we saw it the day before on our bus ride and decided to check it out. I'm so glad we did! We spent about 2 hours there, but a person could really spend an entire day or more there.

After awhile we were walking from room to room saying "more beautiful art... Picasso, cool whatever... Monet, wow great..." There's only so many iconic paintings a person can take in in a day. We decompressed in Trafalgar Square and took pictures with some giant lions before heading to our next destination: The Natural History Museum. After a couple walks, a bus ride, and a wait in line we were in! We were greeted by lifesize replicas of blue whales, elephants, and tyrannosaurus rexes. The place was huge and once again there was so much to see. They had detailed animal exhibits as well as a detailed exhibit about the human life-cycle. This was another place where one could spend an entire day or more, but we were beginning to feel a little museumed-out. I walked through and looked at as much as I could but we were ready for a drink and/or nap.

We were only a short tube ride from the iconic Hard Rock Cafe so we made our way there to get a drink and a souvenir hurricane glass. We walked through Hyde Park and saw the Wellington Arch. We decided to walk back to our hotel through Green Park and stopped at Buckingham Palace (or Bucky as we fondly called it now) and took some more pictures. Once we were back at our hotel we were tired from a long day, but decided to power through and keep having fun as it was our last night in London. We had a happy hour drink and snack in our hotel lounge and decided to take an Uber to a bar a few miles away that looked cool. We wanted to see what it was like riding in a car where the driver was on the opposite side that we're used to. It was crazy and new for about a minute and then it was like 'cool, we're just riding in a car in crazy London traffic'. It would have been faster to get to our destination taking the tube, and possibly even walking, but we waited patiently and eventually got to the bar. The place was a really fancy nightclub but as it was only 7pm it was pretty dead. When we walked in and the hostess looked us up and down in our jeans and T-shirts and looked disgusted. The few other people there were wearing business suits and dresses. We had one drink and left to find another place more our style. We found a casino where I quickly lost $20 playing "War" against a card dealer in 4 fast hands. The night was shaping out to be kind of a dud and we were a little bummed that we hadn't had any real conversations with any Londoners. We walked back towards our hotel and were about to call it a night but decided to get one more pint in the pub right by our hotel. We met a group of gentleman who were having a Bachelor Party and finally had some fun conversations with some locals. They loved our "accents", told us they liked Donald Trump (barf), and we talked about the royal family. After talking with them for a little while Megan and I were so ready to call it a night. We made our way back to our hotel and got some sleep for the travel day to Paris that lay ahead.

Amanda and Megan Do Europe Part 2- Day 2 in London

On Thursday July 27, 2017 Megan and I woke up after a much needed long night of sleep. For the duration of our trip if one of us was feeling lazy in the morning we'd proclaim while resting our head on the pillow "you be shower girl number one". After getting ready and enjoying the breakfast in our hotel, we made our way out to continue exploring London. We hopped on our tour bus near Trafalgar Square and headed to The British Museum. After waiting in line for awhile and going through security, we were in! There was so much to see! We saw lots of Greek statues, artifacts, mummies, dishes, paintings by Michelangelo and the actual Rosetta stone. There was even an exhibit about the pacific northwest United States and we were like "Those are our people!". After some coffee and ice cream we moved on to our next adventure.

We decided to take the tour bus to a "Jack The Ripper Walking Tour". The tour bus was totally cool, but when you're trying to get somewhere in a timely matter, it was not the most efficient way. The tour we wanted to go on started at 3:30, and at the rate our bus was going and the round-a-bout route it took we'd never make it in time. We hopped off the bus and decided to take the tube. After a quick ride we made it with time to spare, enough time to get a hot dog (you can take the girl out of America, but you can't take the hot dog out of the girl...???). Our walking tour was lots of fun even though it rained like crazy for part of it. Our guide was really knowledgeable, and we learned a lot about London's history. We went to the site where 3 of Jack the Ripper's murder's took place, and learned some theories about who he was (he was never caught).

After the tour we got back on the tube and headed to London's West End to watch a musical. After a pizza dinner we went to the Prince of Wales Theatre to watch "The Book of Mormon". It was so good! After the show we debated going to a club or bar but ended up just walking around for awhile and walked all the way back to our hotel, in the dark, through a scary park... which probably wasn't the safest thing to do in an unfamiliar city, but we lived to tell the tale. Back at our hotel we were starving and ordered the most delicious appetizer platter. It had cheese, chutney, pears, shepherds pie, some kind of soft meat stuff, and bread. After that we got ready for bed and randomly watched Bridget Jones's Diary as we fell asleep.

Amanda and Megan Do Europe Part 1-Flight and Day 1 in London

My sister Megan and I had been talking about doing a backpacking trip through Europe since we were practically in diapers. We had hoped to do it while we were in college, but I kept popping out kids. The years were passing and I wondered if we'd ever get around to it. Finally we decided to go for it during summer 2017, why the heck not?! Waiting until we were in our late 20s allowed us to be more financially stable and be able to stay in hotels and instead of hostels and enjoy a few more of the finer things, such as the lounge at Seatac where we began our journey. I had always wanted to try out one of the fancy airport lounges that offered unlimited food and drinks. I got to Seatac from Spokane at about 2pm and our flight to London didn't leave until 7. I bought a $45 lounge day pass and put my feet up and took full advantage of the all you can eat food and drinks. Megan joined me at about 4 o'clock and we had a great time sipping champagne and excitingly waiting to get on my first international flight.

When it was time to board we anxiously waited our turn and got on and found our seats. I was so excited about every little thing on the plane. Our seats had blankets, pillows, and earbuds on them and you would have though I won the lottery by how excited I was about that. We took off without any issues and were on our way! The service was comparable to some 1st class flights I've been on. We were served a huge dinner with complimentary wine and had screens in our seats to watch new release movies and play games. After we ate Megan and I tried to sleep a little bit for the 9.5 hour flight. I think I managed to get about 5 hours, which is pretty good for me as I usually have a really hard time sleeping on planes. When we woke up they were serving a traditional English breakfast with scones and tea and pretty soon it was time to land in London!

After landing we made our way through London Heathrow airport and through customs. We figured out their subway system and hopped on the tube towards our hotel. It was about 12:30 pm London time when we landed and we made it to our hotel around 3, just in time for check in. We stayed at "Hub by Premier Inn" near Westminster Abbey and St. James Park. We did a lot of research in choosing all our hotels. The most important factor was "hote loke" aka hotel location. We wanted to be near the center of town and most of the popular attractions and we definitely chose wisely in London. We were within walking distance of Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, The London Eye, Trafalgar Square, and Buckingham Palace; and also right across from a metro station that could take us anywhere. The hotel had free breakfast, snacks, and coffee, and a cool lounge with a good happy hour and friendly staff. The rooms were modern and pretty cool. The only downside of the hotel, which didn't bother us, was the room was small and didn't have a window. We got to our room, put our bags down and thought about taking a nap... but we were too excited! We freshened up, drank some coffee, and set out to explore!

Our first stop was Buckingham Palace. We walked there and found it easily. We took pictures of the guards with the cool hats and admired the huge statues and gardens near the palace. Our next plan was to get on The Original Tour bus. It's a cool double-decker bus that has different routes that take you around London's attractions. You can get off and on at whatever spots you want and tour at your own pace. Our only problem was we couldn't find the bus stop. After some walking in circles we eventually found it (the map provided by the company was NOT to scale or in the correct orientation, not that I'm blaming anyone...) Once on the bus, we plugged in our earbuds and listened to some history and information as we drove by Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the London Eye, and crossed London bridge. We got off the bus near the bridge and decided to take a cruise down the Thames.

We grabbed a London pride beer and a bag of chips each and listened to the guide as we cruised down the river. The bank of the river is lined with lion head statues that indicate flood levels in London. Our funny tour guide stated the rhyme "When the lions drink, London will sink. When it's up to their manes, we'll go down the drains. When the water is sucked, you can be sure London is... in trouble". The relaxing boat ride ended near Big Ben and we got off and walked back towards our hotel. We walked by a traditional English phone booth (photo op!) and a statue of Abe Lincoln ("that's our guy!"). We also walked by this giant sanded area called Horse Guards Parade, that I'm still not really sure what it's used for, but it looked cool. We walked through Trafalgar Square (also know to us as truffleupagus square, ttutankhamun square, tootie-fruitie square, tuna noodle casserole square, etc...) We ended the evening having a pint of peroni and a plate of fish and chips at the pub right by our hotel. We called it a night at about 9:30 pm and had a great night's sleep in our hotel