travels, races, and other musings

We had a break from the tube strike! We got ready and got on the tube to meet up with a friend that Emmaline went to elementary school (Charlie) with and by extension my friend (his mom, Octavia). We haven’t seen them since our kids were little (they had moved away to Oklahoma and then to London - they both have dual citizenship). We met at Tower Bridge, something none of us had done before. It was fun to go up and across the bridge and they have it set up like a little museum, which is really cool.  After that we grabbed some snacks nearby as it started to rain (again). We were going to part company because Octavia needed to write ( she’s an author) but she decided to write later and hang with us for the day. Charlie goes to university in London and was done with school so they got to tag along our itinerary for the day.  After our snack, Emmaline wanted to see Big Ben since the last time we saw it, it was covered in scaffolding so we went over there and took some photos in ...

A couple of days before arriving in London, I got an email from the theatre where we had tickets to see Phantom of the Opera that we needed to allocate extra time to get the theatre because there was a tube strike on. Lovely. The strike would run two days: June 2 and June 4. Thankfully, I had planned most of our June 2 activities close to our AirBnB, so it didn’t impact us too much, but it did cause us some headaches, unfortunately. We awoke to a typically soggy London morning. We grabbed our umbrellas and walked over to Kensington Palace for our reserved-time tickets right at opening. There was already a pretty good sized line when we got there but we were in pretty quickly. Again, the included audio guide was quite good and we enjoyed our visit to the palace. Photos were allowed inside, but I didn't take many. I did find this wind clock thing to be intriguing. We had originally planned to have lunch elsewhere, but it was too early and nothing was going to be open, so we had a re...

This is a boring day and not really anything happened to feel free to skip! We were sort of tired and needed a chill day so we didn’t really plan anything for the day. We got up and got everything packed, which was no small feat because on the way out, the airline damaged our luggage beyond repair and we were down a suitcase. We had come with two mediums and a carry on and so I expanded the remaining medium and the carry on and unfolded a little packable duffle bag we travel with in case we need an extra bag. And everything just barely fit.  We gave our bags to the front desk and went out to do a little shopping, first to a bookshop and then to a vintage store. We didn’t make any purchases, but we had an enjoyable time. We then went to a little nearby cafe for some lunch before returning to pick up our luggage. We decided to take an Uber to the train station because it seemed simpler with all our baggage and it was about the same price as three bus tickets anyway. We got some coffe...

We had a pretty chill morning. We slept in a bit and then grabbed an Uber to Swanston Farms because Emmaline wanted to see Highland cows and this was the closest place we could do that. (We saw one from a distance at a loch the previous day but it was very far.) There wasn’t a public transport option to get there, thus the Uber. We finished there and we had originally decided to have lunch in their cafe, but it was pretty early so we just had coffee and scones. Then we got another Uber (after a really long wait) and went to Holyrood Palace.  Like the castle the day before, we were given an audio guide that was actually really good. We all enjoyed the palace, its old abbey, and the beautiful gardens. (No photos allowed inside the palace.) We left there and went to have some lunch at a little cafe about halfway down the royal mile and I also made that purse strap swap out I mentioned in my entry about the bag making.  We walked the royal mile and Emmaline and I went inside St. G...

We had to wake up extra early for our day trip to the highlands. We had booked a tour with Rabbie’s to the west highlands to see some lochs and castles. We got up, ate breakfast and took a bus to the central bus station to meet the tour.  We drove for about two hours and our first stop was Loch Lomond (and of course I had the song going through my head all morning). We spent a little time there at the loch and in the tiny town next to it, Luss. We got some coffees from a little cafe and I picked up some shortbread to eat later.  From there we stopped by a viewpoint called “Rest and Be Thankful” to take in the beautiful view and snap some photos then continued on to Inveraray where we had about an hour and half for lunch and shopping. There was the option to go over to Invararay Castle, but we didn’t feel like it was enough time so we just walked around the town and did a little shopping after lunch.  We left there and set out again making a stop at Kilchurn Castle, which ...