3 am feels more and more natural everyday and this morning, we literally jump out of bed to a little harmless spilling type accident that I so fortunately thought to wake us to. No harm, no foul and certainly now an even earlier start to our day.
Having spent the hour it takes to work out packing up the previous night, we get our feet to the ground and work our way over to a London Starbucks. Yes, it tastes the same. No, it costs more. But this Starbucks was served in a small mall like area that housing an almost Figment like dry docked ship, in the middle of the courtyard. Even with coffee in me, it stayed put, so no fear, I was not still dreaming.
Surreal Starbucks
Fueled up, we make our way down the riverside, soaking up the fog and cool air. We make our way over to the London Tower Bridge
London Fog
If you are like me and grew up hearing the London Bridge song, learning that this bridge is in fact the TOWER bridge, is an important distinction to walk about in one’s accurate childhood landscape. The London Bridge, much less gusto. Sadly we did not get enough time to do the tour, but we had plenty to fully enjoy walking about, counting double decker buses, and loading up on some much needed souvenir supplies.
Lighted ways
Tower Stretch
One thing I've also enjoyed while wandering around, locks. Sure, some have very cute stories of promises made to love one forever and forever contribute to the alkaline content of the rivers below by throwing away the keys. Many though, like bike locks, seem to hold great propose but looks very different in subtile ways everywhere I've been. I particularly enjoy creating stories as I walk of the sentiments or placeholders the locks I stumble across hold in their keeping.
Remember
We said goodbye to London in a whirlwind of trying to get the right kind of train ticket to get over to the Gatwick Airport once again. Shucks Oyster card. As for leaving Gatwick, the airport was actually very efficient, utilizing stations for getting through security and minimal lines.
We flew Ryanair, which is an excellent cost save to hop around Europe and I was impressed by how easy it was to send a bag on without as much fuss over weight as we had received on Norwegian air getting over in the first place. Plus they even had a nice hour delay which bought us enough time to try out Nado’s, another new favorite I’ll miss back in the states.
Layover Nado
After informing Dublin Customs that we are “on holiday”, we made our way into the city via the airport bus system that I would also give high marks to which included Wifi and stops in both English and Gallic. We even made some friends who were starting this process of moving from Spain in hopes of a better life in Ireland. After helping them with what I hope was reliable directions, we found our way to our Airbnb in the Liberties District. From our first steps on the cobblestone, we could already tell, we were walking on a place full of history.
It's all good
Since the next day promises to be FULL of adventure, we chowed down on some pizza and enjoyed the sounds of Dublin’s street lullabies.
