Thursday, October 20, 2011

Final Thoughts on London

Phew!  Finally done with the recap and pictures of London!  That was just a small portion of the pictures I took.  I think I took about 350 pictures in the 7 days we were gone.  I'm going to make a photobook on Shutterfly at some point, just have to wait until I have several hours to do so.

So final thoughts on London...I honestly can't even find the words to describe what a great time we had.  I think it was the perfect place to pick for our vacation.  I also think it was the perfect time to go...not many tourists...we didn't have to wait in line for anything and all the touristy sights we visited weren't super crowded.  It was nice to have the conveniences and familiarities of America balanced with so many new and exciting things to see and do.  I remember the first few nights I had some trouble falling asleep because I was just so excited about what we were going to do the next day.  Everyone we met there was friendly and helpful.

I haven't traveled the world, but as far as I've seen, London has the best public transportation system.  I know Manhattan has a pretty good one also, but Mark and I were highly impressed by the London system.  First, you can buy a day pass for about $10/person that allows you to take buses and trains all throughout the day for a flat rate (I wish Manhattan had that).  We relied heavily on the trains and there was one time where we waited 3 minutes for a train.  Other than that, we literally waited less than 1 minute for every other train we took throughout the 7 days!  Their buses are also phenomenal, there are so many of them and they are easy to use--there are visual and audio signals on the bus letting you know what the next stop will be. 

Honestly, when we chose London as our destination, I wasn't super excited about it.  I mean, I wasn't against it or anything, and I obviously agreed to go, but I wasn't passionate about going.  London hadn't been on my list of "places I must go."  I think I was thinking it would be so similar to America, and I didn't know what there was to see there.  When I first got my guidebooks, I had never heard of the Tower of London or the British Museum or several other places.  Maybe I was just naive or maybe not well-educated--those Texas schools tend to focus on Texas history more than anything else.  I can tell you anything you would want to know about Santa Anna.  In any case, I'm so glad Mark suggested that we go to London and I'm so glad that we went!  Now I really have the travel bug and can't wait until our next trip.  We are thinking of going to Australia next fall...I've been once before but I'm excited to share that experience with Mark this time around!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...