Prologue:
We have arrived back at our home (away from home) after our Christmas adventures to London and Paris. We had a great time in both London and Paris! We saw many touristy type of things but also had time for lots of nice strolls and afternoons in cafes. Sadly for Beth, not much shopping occurred as the stores were closed many of the days when we were travelling due to either Christmas or New Years. We both did better with our French that we had anticipated which was a welcome surprise! However, it did feel nice to return to England where, by some strange turn of events, understanding a Yorkshire accent has now become less work than understanding French. We did find ourselves missing our families and friends, especially on Christmas and New Years. And, to be honest, it was a little sad to come home at the end of a long vacation to a home that is not quite home. But enough mushy stuff…back to the merriment of Christmas…we will recap the trip over the next few days. What follows is our best recollection of the events transpiring on our travels. We are putting as much detail as we can into the following blog postings since, if we don’t, our feeble memories will forget pretty much everything, including the fact that we made the trip at all. So, here goes …
Day 1 – December 23rd
Disaster strikes as Brent wakes up with a cold. Or a hangover. It’s too early to tell since a cold is really just like a hangover that lasts for much longer. We walked to the Leeds train station with our luggage to catch our 11am train to London. The train journey took a pleasant 2 hours and 20 minutes. At this point, Brent decided his cold/hangover is really a hangover. From the train we were able to see much of the English countryside that we don’t normally get the opportunity to see. On arrival at King’s Cross Station, one of our traveling party decided she had to (just HAD to) see the Harry Potter Platform 9 ¾ sign. After that detour, we head for the taxi stand and make our way to the Dukes Hotel. We had a scenic taxi ride to our hotel in St. James. This is considered ‘Royal London’ with Buckingham Palace and St. James Palace right around the corner from our hotel.
Ah, the Dukes. Is there a better hotel anywhere in the world? If there is, we haven’t stayed at it. In hindsight, it was probably too nice since we just wanted to stay in our comfy room and only leave to go down to the hotel bar for martinis and sherry. The martinis and sherry necessitated a nap prior to our evening of fun. If you can call sleeping for 2 hours in the middle of the day a nap, that is. Whatever, don’t judge us – it was Christmas!
We were able to drag ourselves out of the Dukes to attend the Christmas Concert at the Barbican. Christmas classics and carols were sung which put us further in the Christmas spirit. We had dinner at a nice little Italian place and made it back just in time for last call at the Dukes. Perfect.
