First Class, the Northern Lights, and the Olympic Rings

Posted by Chelsie on Aug 12, 2012 | 6 comments

We made it! What a great flight. It might be the only chance we get to fly first class so we definitely enjoyed it while it lasted. We watched movies, we ate our dinner off of real plates with real silverware, and we slept in a lay-flat bed. All that was great, but the best part of the flight actually had nothing to do with our first class seats. About 4 hours in Andrew started noticing faint white streaks of light outside the plane window. Over several minutes, the lights became brighter and brighter and started taking on a green hue. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing…it was the Northern Lights! For those of you that don’t know, we had originally planned for our trip this year to take place in October and include Iceland and Scandinavia. One of the main highlights was to be seeing the Northern Lights which is a bucket list item for Andrew and I. Unfortunately, because of Andrew’s school schedule and my work schedule, we weren’t able to take that trip. We decided to take this trip instead knowing that we would have to put off our dream to see the Northern Lights for at least one more year. Well it looks like Mother Nature was smiling down on us because we got to check that bucket item off after all. We were so amazed that we strained our necks trying to take everything in until slowly but surely the lights faded away. Andrew was able to get some really cool photographs out the window.

Getting through customs, picking up our luggage, and and finding our driver was a breeze. Our flight landed at Noon and by 1:30 p.m. we were already checking into our small boutique hotel on Eccleston Square. On our first trip to London we stayed with my cousin Mickey in his flat just a few doors down. Since we know the area really well and our favorite coffee shop Tom Tom is right around the corner, we thought this would be an ideal place to stay. The hotel is great. The rooms are a little on the smaller size, but what is lacking in size is definitely made up for in technological advancement. We have a 3D TV, an in-room iPad, heated bathroom floors, a bed that has a built-in foot massager, and clear shower doors that fog up for privacy at the touch of a button. Andrew is in heaven. :)

After a quick nap and a shower, we headed to Tower Bridge to take pictures of the iconic Olympic Rings. It is so strange seeing them on TV one day and then being here in person, half a world away, the next. There were relatively big crowds as we expected, but nothing too bad so far. The tube was pretty crowded too. At one point we walked across the bridge to see all the commotion going on on the other side of the Thames. The city had setup a huge projector showing live Olympics events and there was a noisy mob of people watching. It got particularly rowdy when Tom Daley of the UK was fighting the US and China for a gold medal in 10m platform diving. We saw lots of people sporting national pride including a guy wearing full Leprechaun getup with an Irish flag tied to his shoulders like a cape. There was also a guy in a gorilla suit playing an electric guitar. We ate a delicious dinner at a tasty Indian restaurant on that side of town and then did some more walking and nighttime photography…or “night shots” as Andrew and Mickey like to call it.

We landed back at the hotel at around 11:00 p.m., watched some Olympics recaps on BBC, and are headed for bed. So far its been a great start to our trip. We hope everything is going well at home and that the heatwave is almost over by now. We will post more tomorrow.

Cheers,

Chelsie & Andrew