Remember how we said that we were going to get an early start to London this morning? Well… Yeah that didn’t happen. Alarm went off at 7:30 a.m. and we turned it off. Went off again at 8:20 a.m. (our original planned time of departure)… and we turned it off. Went off again at 9:30 a.m. and once more on snooze. By 10:30 a.m. we were finally up and moving around.
Got up, got dressed and met with Helena (who’s name is pronounced Elena… The H is silent) and Immie and her little brother Zane who we met for the first time that morning. Had yummy yummy toast and got to sit and talk for a while before Helena took us up to Mill Hill (I think there may be a lot of these hills throughout England…) which is the most beautiful hill thing EVER. I mean, this look out was breath catching.
After our brief visit to the most beautiful hill I may have ever been on top of, we headed to the station. With semi rushed goodbyes and thank yous, we left Helena and ran to the train.
We caught the 11:43 a.m. to London and then were off.
The train… was packed.
And I mean PACKED.
I have this stupid thing where I cannot sit going backwards on trains for long periods of time. I get horribly, and I do mean HORRIBLY motion sick sometimes and just didn’t want to risk it. So we moved from car to car trying to find some seats.
Finally we had to just face the facts and sat down on different side of the car in the first available seats. I sat next to an older gentleman who had a surprised and shy face who was nice enough and Carolyn sat across from a woman in her sixties with short white hair.
Carolyn, of course, bonded with the woman across from her over their eye wear, and from then on, did not stop chit chatting. Eventually the seating rearranged and I ended up next to Eddie across from Carolyn. Eddie is amazing. She reminds me of who Carolyn could/will be when she’s older. 
She and Carolyn talked while I tried not to get dizzy on the train. I’ll have to let Carolyn explain further about Eddie in another post.
Eh, figured I'd interject here to help with the readability of the posts. Eddie was AWESOME. She was seated across from me on the train and I'd wanted to ask if I could take a picture of her the instant we got settled but wasn't sure how to do so... until I accidentally knocked over her -thankfully empty- coffee cup and being my mothers daughter, I struck up a conversation. She and I bonded over our glasses being dual colored, and then moved on to talking about the work she does (classically trained in art but is currently teaching basic IT to convicted felons in prison) and then her life and my life... I hope I get to be like her when I'm older. Seriously. So fantastic - and she has had (and is currently having) such an interesting life!
So after the train, we arrived at Victoria Station in London. On our way out, we got stopped, by one of our many vices… Lush. We went in and only managed to escape with a few things, which was not too bad considering our previous expeditions into the store.
Once we got out of Victoria Station, we hopped on the District Line and got off on Earls Court Station. Just a short 3 minute walk from the station and we were at the hotel. It’s so cute.
Checked in, dropped off small overnight bags and then headed out to Camden.
I forgot how much I love Camden. Both the market and the Lock are so amazing and fun. We stopped in the market and had lunch, some of the most amazing burgers EVER. I had a Jerk Chicken burger with mango salsa on it and Carolyn had a chicken honey mustard sandwich thing. In short, they were both amazing. We also ordered a side of sweet potato fries and onion rings.
After the amazing lunch, we headed out to the market. SO AMAZING. It was all just so much to take in and it was so fun! We spent easily 3+ hours there, wandering and enjoying all the sights and smells and sounds of Camden. We both agreed, we could live there very easily.
We had some pretty sugary donuts (4 for £1) that we probably ate 25% of before having to throw them away. We also had some Chinese food that while a bargain, made us both really nauseous.
After leaving Camden, we headed back to our previous hotel to pick up our bags. Brought them back down to our current Hotel and then just hung out, bathed (and I mean we actually took baths…) and listened to hilarious radio personality on the TV. All in all a magnificently fun day.
Random side note… while we were in Camden we happened upon a spa that had the skin nomming fishes, so I got my feet munched on by fishes!!! EEEP! It tickled so bad I thought I was going to die!!!
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