After a final visit to the boulangerie it was off to the train station for us. Â We figured out that we were suppose to be leaving from the first floor so we walked from one end to the other….not our train. Â Okay, find employee and use my French one last time to find out where the heck the train was on the first floor when we had walked the length of the station and not seen it. Â Oh. Â Turns out that we were on the ‘ground’ floor and needed to schlep everything up the stairs to the ‘firstfloor rot. Â We did so thinking to ourselves “this is the second floor damn it. Â Now we are in a rush.”. Still made the train so in the end not a big deal but frustrating. Â When we take the next leg of our journey we are going to plan on arriving even earlier to help compensate for this possibility.
Going through the French countryside was beautiful. Â I loved the small towns and green fields, as well as the many fields of bright yellow flowers which I believe are mustard plants. Â The Chunnel portion of the ride kinda unsettled Elspeth. Â She had difficulty reconciling that it was suddenly dark. Â It all sorted itself once we were back outside. Â Glenn and I had hoped that Elspeth would nap on the train. Â No such luck, Â yet another day with a tired girl.
After checking in to our hotel it was off to ride the tube and do walkbys of Buckingham Palace (“Does the queen really live there?”), Westminster Abbey (“hey, that big prince’s wedding was there.) and the Parliment Buildings.  When Katrine saw the London Eye she was so excited.  “It’s the big ferris wheel from Phineas and Ferb!”. On the was, we went through St James Park only it turned out to be Green Park which made sense as there was an awful lot of grass.  Turned the mistake into fun by showing the girls how to roll down a hill.  It was great to see a mistake  reading a map turn into a big batch go giggles and smiles.  As we continued onward, we did end up traveling through St James Park (We had turned left at Queen Victoria fountain instead of right.).  How happy were the girls to see the birds – pigeons, geese, and many varieties of ducks.  Pointing, naming them and chasing them.  I remember feeding the ducks when I came to London with my family as a kid.  I wonder if thgreater the grand kids of those ducks?
We grabbed the tube again to the Tower of London. Â Not to see the tower but to see Tower Bridge. Â It was scheduled to go up today. Â This only happens about twice a year. Â I knew it was something that both Glenn and Katrine would enjoy and I thought that Elspeth could get into it once things got started. However, the timing got moved up Nd the bridge had both raised and lowered by the time we arrived which left us with nothing to do but get dinner and head backhot the hotel.