It was without a doubt, one of our most favorite places we’ve been!  We took a flight with British Airways to get to London and it was quick and smooth, only about 45 minutes in the air before we started our descent.  We touched down on British soil at around 9 PM and started to make our way to customs and the border patrol.  Andree went to one booth and I went to the other.  I was taken off guard by how many questions he asked me, it went a little something like this:

Officer: Why are you here?
Me: Just a small vacation.
Officer: But you’re coming from France?
Me: Yes, I’m living there until mid December.
Officer: What are you doing in France?
Me: I’m living with my girlfriend while she’s studying at school there.
Officer: Do you have proof that you’re leaving back to Canada.
Me: Not on me, no.
Officer: Where is your girlfriend?
Me: Uhmm… that booth over there.
Officer: OK, you should really stick together when coming through.
Me: Oh, sorry.
Officer: Does she have a Visa?
Me: Yes.
Officer: So where’s your Visa?
Me: I was told I didn’t have to get one by the lady at the Consulate of France in Toronto, since I’m allowed to stay in France for 3 months.
Officer: But you’re staying longer, you got here Sept 1 and you’re leaving Dec 14.
Me: Yes but I will be visiting other countries like Germany, Italy etc. As long as I don’t stay in the country of France for 3 months she said I’m fine.
Officer: It seems kind of silly to me that she has a Visa and you don’t.
Officer: What I’m worried about is that there is no proof that you’ve left the country, because Germany and the other Schengen countries don’t stamp passports. I’m more concerned about you when you have to go back to France.
Me: Right, I found that out when I got here. I was misinformed.
Officer: Why would you want to go back to Canada, with the recession and everything.
Me: Oh, Saskatchewan is actually booming in Canada, I don’t expect I would have a problem finding a job.
Officer: Ok, go ahead.

Phew, I think I was on the verge of some forehead sweat.  London absolutely drilled me with questions while going back to France it was like it was when we first came, they look at me, stamp my passport and you’re through.

We took a London express train that got us to the tube station (the underground train).  We transferred and made our way to the K+K Hotel.  We got to the hotel and wow – it was beautiful.  For $275/night (CAD) we sort-of expected beauty, and Champagne fountains.  There were no Champagne fountains but they did serve it as part of the breakfast the next morning!  Sorry… “Sparking wine”.  When we saw the breakfast we knew we were going to have to pace ourselves – 1 plate at a time.  We also had a nice view of the hotels courtyard from the breakfast table.

After breakfast we inquired about our free bus tour that came with the hotel package we bought.  We then made our way down to Oxford Circus – it absolutely was a circus.  We made our way through a giant park to where we needed to catch the bus.  We boarded the lovely double decker and made our way around London.  We sat at the top of the bus where there was an open roof so we got a nice breeze as we listened to our audio tour guide.  Half way through the bus tour we decided to jump off the bus and continue with a boat tour (also included by K+K Hotel).  The boat tour was ok, the tour guide had such a thick accent that it was hard to hear what he was talking about.  The British are naturally hilarious so we just decided to laugh whenever everyone else laughed – it all worked out.

On our boat tour the tour guide pointed out a large ship called the HMS Belfast.  Being the guy I am, I was immediately taken with the turrets and other fire power that the vessel contained – it was a beast.  After we got off the boat, we decided to cross the Tower Bridge and make our way over to the “all-that-is-man” ship.  Of course we took the audio tour, nothing beats it!  The ship was full of history and creepy wax statues.

Now it’s time to head back to our hotel for the most important part of our trip… Tea time!  Like the free tours, tea time came with our hotel package.  Well hunky-dory, we’re so english – tea and scones! They were by far the best scones we’ve ever had.  Unfortunately we only got one free tea time pass.

Later that night we met up with our friends James and Kate.  For supper, they took us to a place called “My Old Dutch Pancake House”. They served gigantic crepes.  You could either order a “sweet” crepe or a “savory” one.  The sweet crepes were basically crepes with sugar, chocolate, bananas etc. And a savory one would be one with meat and/or veggies.

We heard that almost all the museums in London are free, so the next day we decided to check out the War Museum.  This was really cool but it was littered with children and you couldn’t hear anything but the sound of 10 year-olds talking and whining – not to mention them climbing on all of the artifacts, oh kiddies.  We spent most of our time in the Holocaust museum on the 3rd floor, not too many kiddies there! We learnt a lot about the Holocaust from our trip to Dachau in Germany and then coming to see the museum here in London.  Later on that evening James got us tickets to a show.  This wasn’t just ANY type of show, this was a play!  The play was called “An Inspector Calls”.  It was riveting and had us on the edge of our seat the whole time – you couldn’t be too far on the edge of your seat though cause you’d fall off the balcony into the crowd below.

All in all, London is a place we both want to go back to.

On another note, we’ve posted all our pictures from Venice, London and more from Reims.  Sorry Venice, you don’t deserve a blog post.