Traveling to London (from Glasgow)

Today was another travel day. These are hard on the kids, though we do try to plan around them best we can. We took a late morning train so that Ellie could spend some extra time with Grannie and Millar. They took her to the park to see the ducks and do a little playing for about an hour before we left for the train. Max got his morning nap in comfort while David and I packed us up.

We were at the train station with plenty of time, thanks to Millar and Hazel. We got on to our seats and were able to be really organized. We got our luggage right beside us and lots of extra seats. It was a good set up – best yet. We had lunch and tried to get everyone to sleep – it took a long time. Max ended up sleeping in the elevated stroller – David was patient as he held it at this elevation for nearly two hours – with only a bit of sleep…

I ended up playing on the computer, encouraging Ellie to sleep – but it was very hard for her. She finally fell asleep about 15 minutes before we arrived in London – oh well.

We arrived in London early and the challenge began – how should we get to the hotel with all the bags, safely. We had 3 large bags, 1 travel cot/port crib, 3 very full backpacks, 1 3 year old in a stroller, 1 big Max in the Ergo on my front and (one of the backpacks on my back) and my big red purse. It was a LOT of luggage and babies.
I was nervous to take the kids in a taxi without car seats, so we set out on the Tube. David was patient. It included a connection and a LOT of stairs. Honestly, we were a little crazy to do this, but I felt it was the safest way.

Honestly, the most important point of this blog is to point out how friendly the people of London were to us as we tried to make our way. I honestly cannot count the number of people who offered to help us make our way around – up steps, escalators, out trains, and just through it all. I know it was more then 10 different people – about half may have been other Americans in London – which I found odd. But I do believe that had I had this same challenge in NYC, as much as I do love NYC, we wouldn’t have had one person offer to help us. We started accepting the help graciously after a while. I am grateful to all those who helped us because it was not an easy trip. There were a lot of steps and my shoulders were dead when we arrived to our posh hotel location in South Kensington.

When we arrived to the room, David got a shower and I lay down on the bed to relax and enjoy a treat. Ellie also took her pants off (like I had done) crawled up beside me and said, I will lay here with you and enjoy a treat too mommy. It was so cute. It’s the kind of things you get when traveling in a hotel and you are so close.

After everyone was washed – a bit of an interesting experience in itself – we headed out to find our dinner. It was not as easy as we expected to find a dinner/pub to welcome children. We have realized Children are not really expected to be going out to eat and/or to pubs. This is unfortunately disturbing to David and I who have learned to enjoy this multi-generational experience that England can provide. We are hoping Uncle Dolan can suggest something better for tomorrow.