We woke up incredibly excited, I don't think I have gotten myself washed and dressed so quickly in my life! I found my mother had literally put out the flags this morning, as promised! I said goodbye to my sister and nephew and got the car all packed up and my parents drove us down to the local train station!

It was sad to leave my home and my family, but I am extremely excited to see the world!

We brought our train tickets to London and as British transport goes, it was delayed and lack enough carriages for a morning commute. The local commuters must have disliked us seeing as we had our huge rucksacks and blocking the corridor! The journey went smoothly and we arrived in London shortly and headed to our hotel for the night to drop our luggage off. My dad had been very kind, and a little sympathetic seeing as the only early train to Paris was at 4 am. Our hotel was the St. Pancras Hotel very convenient considering our train to Paris was leaving from the St. Pancras station.

Considering we haven't actually done much 'sight seeing' in London, we would spend the day going to the major sights, as we aren't sure when we might be back. I had already organised a walking tour for us to make the most of out time (this is a beginning to a theme for the rest of our journey!)

We started at the famous shopping store, Harrods. I got horrendously lost, there are so many levels and different entrances and exits and forgot where I came in! We managed to find the toy section, which is the best part of the store!

I managed to finally locate an appropriate exit and we headed towards the Queen's home. The flag was flying at Buckingham Palace but I couldn't see a peep from the Queen or anyone.

We went into the gardens across from the Palace to have our homemade picnic lunch as Stu was dying of hunger already! In further British tradition, it has started to drizzle and continued for the remaining of the day. We carried on our walking tour to see the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. At this point my feet were beginning to ache, and didn't stop until we hit South East Asia thats how much walking we have done!

I had a little surprise for Stu, which was a trip on the London Eye, which my mum decided to announce and spoil the surprise Sunday Afternoon! It was an enjoyable trip, I took the opportunity to make use of the seats inside the pod to rest my weary feet. Stu was checking out the MI5 and MI6 buildings, so I am unsure what he is planning!

We emerge back into the drizzly weather and had to walk as the Metropolitan line was under works, more examples of typical British transport! We walked along the River Thames, past the Gherkin, Art Gallery and the Shard which was still under construction back in 2012! We walked across the iconic Tower Bridge and had to explain to Stu why it was so special, it took him a little while to understand, but I think he did in the end!

We quickly went to Trafalgar Square, and Piccadilly Circus before heading back to our hotel to rest our feet! We decided to use the complimentary access to the spa and pool in the basement! A good way to spend the remaining of the afternoon!

For dinner we went to one of our all time favourite restaurants, pizza express! I had my usual pizza, polla ad astra and we splashed out on a bottle of wine to share. We talked about how our first few days/weeks would be like and how long we would survive each other!

I had one more surprise, mainly because I wanted to go myself! The Ice Bar, which is created by the guys in Stockholm who build the Ice Hotel each year. Stu was convinced earlier in the day that I was taking him ice skating, and I was enjoying him panicking, but he finally twigged what we were doing when we were queuing to get our massive coats to go inside. With our ticket, we got a 40 minute time slot and a free cocktail which was pretty tasty! We took plenty of photos of the bar and of ourselves in our oversized jackets!

We took on finally tube journey back to the hotel to get a bit of sleep before our 4 am wake up call, which I was not going to enjoy!