Last Days in London

Can you believe I'm finally wrapping up our vacation? It only took forever! Before we begin our next journey I needed to make sure I shared this gem.

Ok, moving on. After the tournament ended Derrick and stayed in England for a few more days to sight see and make the most of our time across the pond. I had been to London before but Derrick had not so we wanted to make sure he got to see the city while we were so close. It was still super fun for me too because Derrick is an all star trip planner and planned all of these fun activities that I had never done before!

This was our first view after we got off the train.

Our hotel was steps from the tower of London so right when we got there we dropped our bags off and headed over to explore the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.

Pro Tip: Get to the Tower of London right at opening time and immediately get in line for the crown jewels. This happy accident saved Derrick and I about an hour of line standing!

I felt like we spend a lot of time at Tower Bridge. We walked over it a few times and drove over it twice.

These were new since the last time I'd been there. The Tower used to have a ton of live animals that had been gifted throughout the years so they had these cool wire sculptures throughout the grounds.

We grabbed lunch from a street vendor under the bridge and then walked across it. Sausages and mash!!!

One of the fun things Derrick found for us to do was an escape room. They are very popular in London and steadily coming to the states. After a frustrating time finding the location we finally got started and escaped the room with 5 minutes to spare!

We stayed one night near the Tower of London and then we spent the next night next to Russel Square at hotel Russel. It was a great hotel with fantastic service! I would definitely recommend it.

The Hotel Russel was only a couple blocks from the British Museum so that's where we started the day on day two. It's huge and amazing! We did a self guided highlights tour and it still took us a good 2-3 hours.

These two were my favorite things we saw in the museum. They are so cute and I would love to have them in our house!

I took this picture for my Mom...first version of a violin.

To end day two we took the metro around to some of the big sights including Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham palace and the Natural History Museum.

As we were walking to the palace we stopped and listened to a national band practicing outside.

That night Derrick scheduled us for a Jack the Ripper tour. The tour took us walking around to sights and scenes of all the Jack the Ripper murders and important places in the victim's lives. The tour was not quite what we expected it to be....we pictured a little more dramatic flair, but it was interesting. I'm not sure if I buy the royal conspiracy theory though.

Finally, on our last day there Derrick found us a text message scavenger hunt around the city. It was super cool and a fun way to see a new part of the city that we hadn't seen before! Again, we had a frustrating start to the hunt because of cell phone issues but once we got it sorted out it was one of the highlights of the trip!

Solved the first clue!

And 14 clues an 2 baguettes later we finished!

We took a double decker bus back to our hotel before catching a ride to the airport.

Told you....that bridge was everywhere!

Loved this view of the sunset and the clouds!

Overall this was a trip of a lifetime! It was an amazing time to spend with family. Jack's team won the gold, and Derrick and I got our first European trip together under our belt! Can't wait for our next adventure!