Our European Trip: London, Day 1

So it's been a few weeks since I last wrote on my blog because I was overwhelmingly busy getting ready for our trip to EUROPE!  I couldn't hardly think straight as we had so much to do before we jumped across the pond!  So I'm back and will do my best to blog regularly again as I definitely do NOT have another trip planned for quite a while ;)

So in an effort not to overwhelm you with the details, I thought I would break down the trip in increments focused on each city we visited.  A little background- Ryan and I have been planning this trip for almost a year now with our awesome friends Dustin and Liz.  Dustin and Ryan were fraternity brothers; Liz and I were high school teammates; Ryan, Liz and I all went to high school together; Ryan, Dustin and Liz all went to college together; Ryan and I got married in November 2010; Dustin and Liz got married in April 2011 in Jamaica... there's the background of our European traveling group!

So anyways, the four of us have been planning this trip for quite a while and needless to say it was the trip of a lifetime!  We left Minnesota on September 13th and flew from here to Chicago and then did an overnight flight to London which landed on the morning of the 14th.  We got into London early in the day so we jumped on the Tube- the subway- and made our way over to our hotel.  We stayed at a beautiful Marriot and shared a room for two nights.  The first day in London we went to the Olympic venue area.  We had hoped to actually see some of the venues- I especially wanted to see the aquatic center but EVERYTHING was closed!  So we walked around the newly built mall area, ate dinner at The Giraffe, and did a tiny bit of shopping- bought Liz a sweater as it was FREEZING in London.  

Trying to figure out the TUBE... oh and please MIND THE GAP!  

Olympic venues all closed up and we couldn't even get close to anything.

Walking around the mall area and being touristy!

After dinner, we made our way over to the London Eye.  The London Eye is basically a huge Ferris wheel that has these capsules, you can ride in and at the top you can see all over London for miles and miles.  It was so cool to see London from above!

A few other fun pictures from this evening...

We then headed back to our hotel and passed out!  We were all exhausted and beyond over tired!

I look forward to sharing our European trip with you over the next few weeks.  I originally planned to blog each city but even starting with this post I realize I cannot possibly do that- each day will require it's own post as I think Ryan and I took close to 2,000 pictures!!  Yikes!  Don't worry I have already made a Shutterfly book and cannot wait to share it with you in person!

I hope you have a great week- mine is VERY VERY full with coaching, birthday dinners, work, and hopefully actually catching up on the laundry from this trip.  That's right- we still haven't completed the laundry from our tirp- don't judge :)

Cheers!