August 17, 2016 - Tanya's Magical Anniversary Trip - Day 1 - London and 16 Facts About London

Elisa's Daily Blog

Fun Facts about London

Hump Day already!!
​
These weeks are just flying by!! Can you believe August is more than half over! 

My kiddies are so sad about the prospect of going back to school. I cannot blame them.  It's so much fun hanging out and getting up early for something fun like horseback riding rather than learning!

I won't focus on that subject anymore today lol.

Moving right along, it's Tanya's first day in London!!

You know what I love best about the time difference when one or both of us are traveling in Europe?  That we get to write and post about all we did on the present day!

Tanya has quite a bit to tell us today about her flight and first day spent in London today -the first city on her Magical Anniversary Trip this month.

As promised, here is some wonderful information about "The Old Smoke" city.

​16 FUN FACTS ABOUT LONDON

Big Ben, London, England (c)travelincousins.com

1. London, England’s capital, set on the River Thames, was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium.

2.  The Museum of London, which retraces the history of London from Prehistoric times to the present day, is the largest urban history museum in the world.

3. Nearly a third of London's population was lost during the Black Death in the mid-14th century.

4. Brought back from China by Dutch merchants, tea made its first appearance in London in September 1658, when the new beverage was advertised in a pamphlet by Thomas Garraway, a coffeehouse owner.

5. Founded in London in 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company is the world's oldest chartered company.

6. The Bank of England, founded in  1694, was the first privately owned national bank in any country.

7. London's "Big Ben" is not the tower. It's the bell inside it.

8. Greater London's population was estimated to be 8.63 million in January 2015, the highest level since 1939.

The London Eye, London, England (c)travelincousins.com

9. During London's "Great Smog" of 1952, between 4,000 and 12,000 people died in a few days due to air pollution.

10. London is the most visited city, with more than 16 million international visitors in 2014.

11. London ranked as the 6th most expensive city in which to live in 2016.

12. London Black Cab drivers are required to know over 25,000 roads and 50,000 points of interest and pass a test called "The Knowledge."

13. London has 72 billionaires, the most of any city.

14. Today's British accent first appeared among London's upper class around the time of the American Revolution. Before that, the British accent was similar to that of Americans.

15. London is the world's largest financial center and Europe's largest city.

16. Established in 1902, Ealing Studios in West London are the oldest continuously working film studios in the world.


Stay tuned for more about London all week!! And do not miss even one of Tanya's blogs during the next 19 days!!

One of the lovely horses at Dream Come True Farm (c)travelincousins.com

Today, I'm back out on Eastern Long Island as the girls are riding two days this week - today being one of them.

I managed to get a bunch of things done today while hanging out at Tanger. 

First of all, I had to fill out some school forms for Gianna.  In Seventh grade, she will be required to do 10 hours of community service in preparation for her Confirmation in Ninth grade.

Another 10 hours will be mandatory in Eighth grade as well.  So, there were a few recommendations sent home by the Religious Ed department of her school for some of the ways she could volunteer to start accruing the time. I filled those out.

Additionally, she has a weekly program on Fridays (which actually began in the Sixth Grade), whereby, the students participate in some fun extra-curricular subjects. 

These change every trimester, with the first one offering such subjects as The Stock Market Game, Chess, Shakespeare, Carpentry and E-Commerce.

I have to say, I was rather proud of my little girl for selecting E-Commerce with The Stock Market Game second and Carpentry third.  

Lord knows, these are invaluable skills to begin acquiring now.  I'm sort of hoping she gets into The Stock Market Game!  Selections are made on a first-come, first-serve basis, so we'll see. Filled that form out and got both things in the mail.

Ok - well, Bon Voyage to Tanya and Dave! Can't wait to hear more tomorrow!!

-E
xoxo

Tanya's Daily Blog
CURRENTLY TRAVELING IN: LONDON

A Dire Flight Experience...

​Greetings from London!

I’m on another vacation - yippee yippee yippee doing my little happy dance over here!!

We’ve landed this morning after a flight that connected out of Vancouver - so technically today I’ve already been to both Canada and now England.

Getting to the airport this morning via shuttle was a bit of an ordeal - if you only knew how awful LA traffic really is...
And then once we arrived at the airport it was an even bigger mess (if that was possible), cars everywhere and not one of them moving. 

​Geesh I thought picking us up 4 hours before our flight was a bit extreme - and while crawling to our terminal there were moments when I thought we should just get out and walk - it had to certainly be faster.
​We finally arrived and just in the nick of time to check  our bags and mosey on over through security and then to our gate.​

Once our zone was called we strolled onboard the aircraft and found a young gentleman of Indian decent sitting in the aisle seat, I kindly let him know that we had the window and middle and he just sat there expecting us to CLIMB OVER HIM!

Well, hmmm I think not - this was a first (on a flight - it’s actually happened to me on a bus once before - and I actually climbed over the rude woman). 
I quickly suggested that he needs to get up and let us by. I suppose perhaps this is an everyday occurence on Air India - does their slogan include that everyone climbs over one another? 
Remind me not to book with that airline.

Mount Hood, Oregon (c)travelincousins.com

Mount St. Helens (c)taravelincousins.com

The flight was pleasant and the skies were clear. We saw the lovely Mount Hood (that we had just visited and mountain biked around in early July), we saw Mount St. Helens and the Olympic National Park Mountain range. All quite lovely. ​

In the Vancouver Airport (c)travelincousins.com

Arriving in Vancouver we had a bit of time to stretch our legs and find a bite to eat.

Oh I forgot to mention that my plan of picking up some vegan grub at the airport was foiled!

Ya see, just last week it had been announced that a LA restaurant that caters to vegans and non-vegans alike was opening a location at LAX - terminal 3 to be exact.
Well as soon as I realized this, I had immediately searched what terminal we happened to be flying out of - terminal 3! 

Oh "happy day" was I excited. 

But when the shuttle had dropped us off at terminal 2, I realized that something had gone wrong - I still don’t quite know what it was.

But no food for us. 

Sure you’d imagine that we could just wander over to terminal 3 from terminal 2. 

Well at sucky LAX it isn’t quite that easy. 

You seriously have to go through security for each terminal and there is no inter-terminal train and/or bus.
Who wants to go through more than one security line just for the heck of it?!
Plus since our flight wasn’t departing from terminal 3 any longer - who knows if they would even let me through. But I wasn’t gonna waste my time to find out. 

​So back to where I was - in Vancouver looking for food.
We came across what I searched online to be the one and only food establishment at the Vancouver airport to offer anything for us vegans - and apparently they need to make more of it.

Because once we got in line and requested the dish - we were told it was sold out for the day! Grrr

In Vancouver waiting for our flight. (c)travelincousins.com

But now it is time for one of my all time favorite London past times - High Tea!!!

However I’m going to back track and rewind just a bit, onto our flight from Vancouver to London…

Aren’t Londonites know for their polite reserved nature or is it just he accent that makes me think so?
Aren’t they rather hush and private, not loud and sharing their business without any care?

Well let’s just say that during a wee little nap that I was enjoying onboard the aircraft, I was rudely awaken by a women in her late forties/early fifties I would guess standing over her teenage son and them both causing quite a scene angrily arguing with one another.

Well well well, she certainly busted that bubble image that I had about Londonites.

Then later on in flight I looked up to see who was then polluting all the of airwaves with carrying on about how many Mexicans there are in Los Angeles; how she voted no on Brexit; and how dare an airlines give her seat away on another flight. BTW it was the same woman!

Then there was the loud screaming sneezer!
*I know - if you know me in person you might be giggling and thinking that it’s like me being the tea calling the kettle black - but I assure you that this person made my sneezes seem like the sneezes of an Angel.

And who can forget Mr Wiggles sitting next to Dave.
"Sir, can you kindly sit still and Dave would be forever grateful if you stopped touching him!"

Oh and then how can I forget to mention my experience in the bathroom...

At first I was immediately annoyed by the people who leave water in the basin - is there a reason you can't or refuse to drain your dirty water???

And the best for last - actually it's the worst - the very very worst - instead of flushing the used toilet tissue, some freakin disgusting gross moron put their dirty poop stained tissues in the slot for the seat covers!!!! 

What an idiot - on sooooo soooooo many levels.

As gross as this entire situation was, they couldn't even toss their grossness into the trash?! 

I'm convinced that I was flying with a bunch of savages!!!

Other than that, the flight was actually quite a smooth ride.

I think I just need my own personal jet - concluding that we need a Travelin Cousins private jet to be at my and Elisa's disposal :)

With all of that behind me, I'm here and I am rearing and ready to go. 

Time to paint the streets of London. But first I think we’ll indulge in tea time.

Find out what else I’m up to today by tuning in tomorrow on the Daily Scoop. Same time, same place and if you haven’t already they why aren’t you subscribing?

It’s been lovely. 
Cheers,
-T