We had to leave for the airport around lunchtime so we had the morning to enjoy our last moments in London. It stormed all night & early in the morning but by the time we headed out, it was beautiful again. I took a picture of our hotel because the Grosvenor Family is a well known family who owns a lot of real estate in London. We heard about him a lot on our tour:
I would definitely stay here again or recommend it. It was on Park Lane overlooking Hyde Park. Very safe & close walking distance to quite a bit. We really wanted to see the US Embassy before we left & luckily it was only a 5 minute walk from our hotel. It was kind of hard to miss:
We saw Embassies all over town & most of them were small & inside a house:
Not USA - they had a compound! We saw the Embassy of Romania across the street from Kensington Palace & Bryan wanted to take a picture since he had just gone there on this business trip.
Across the street from the US Embassy was a memorial built after 9/11:
I had no idea they actually lost 67 of their own that day.
It was such a nice day, we just walked around before we had to head back to the hotel. We walked by the Marble Arch:
We had driven by it several times but I hadn't gotten a good picture of it yet. We also got silly pictures inside phone booths because just like I imagined, you can find one on every single corner:
Bryan pretended to be one of the Queen's guards:
While we were out walking, I couldn't help but take a picture of this:
I realize that they drive on the other side of the road & they drive their cars on the other side than we do, but you would think they would be used to it. I have never been anywhere that had every single intersection marked like this! It's almost like they know they are driving incorrectly & have to warn everyone :)
And speaking of driving, I loved their taxi cabs!
All of their cabs look the same & they are so cute! And almost all of our drivers were older gentlemen who were born & raised there so they were all super friendly & were like our personal tour guides. Not what you find at home!
Since we have never traveled across the pond before, some of the other things that made me smile were the lifts. I noticed right away at the airport that all of the elevators are called lifts. And there are public restrooms everywhere - but you have to pay to go to them!
I expected the electrical outlets to be different, but the biggest difference at our hotel was the restroom:
The bath tub was very narrow. I love taking baths & relaxing, but this one was so narrow, that even I felt squeezed in there & I am not that big! And if you noticed, they only have a half glass wall which made no sense because when we showered, it just made a mess & water got everywhere. By the way, take a look at the faucet:
I kept thinking that it looked like an old time telephone!
But my favorite part of the different bathroom:
The hot towel rack! Why don't we have these at home?!
It was definitely a quick trip & I only spent 4 days in London but we really got to see quite a bit. The tour was well worth it & we got to stop & see everything, we just didn't have time to go inside & take all of the individual tours of every single place. We could have easily spent a week there doing that & it would have cost a lot more money! But honestly, London was safer & cleaner than I imagined. The traffic was horrible but we had fun taking the bus, riding the tube, walking or taking one of the cute taxis :) I know Bryan was exhausted after spending 8 days traveling between London, Romania & Sweden, but I think he enjoyed getting to experience new cultures in different countries. Even though he had a work trip, I am so thankful I got to tag a long & meet him at the end. I enjoyed meeting some of his colleagues & I always love traveling with Bryan & experiencing something new!
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