London & the countryside

I haven't had a chance to write my first actual post because we've been so busy and have had limited wifi, but I'll try to remember what we've done so far! The trip over here was easy. My bag was almost overweight, of course, even after I took out a sweatshirt and pair of shoes on the way to the airport. We took Virgin Airlines over and it was great. The pLane was enormous; each seat had its own TV and they were pouring champagne as we boarded the flight. One of the flight attendants saw us looking at the champagne and asked if we would like some. We jokingly said yes, and a few minutes later champagne was delivered to us at our seats, completely free of charge. The rest of the flight was easy and we enjoyed talking to the flight attendants and hearing their British accents. When we landed at Heathrow, it was almost 8 PM, and we decided to take the underground to my aunts house in the Chelsea district of London. Taking the underground was pretty fast, and incredibly easy, even with our huge suitcases. The first part of London we saw when we came off the underground was Sloane Square, a cute square road with shops, restaurants, and a double decker bus parked on the corner. We found our way to my aunts house from the underground station without a problem, and when we arrived, she and my uncle had food waiting for us and talked to us about London sightseeing before going to sleep. Their house is really beautiful; since its in the city, it's really narrow but has 6 floors inside, with a lot of staircases. The next day, we wandered over to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. The crowd in front of the palace was enormous and we couldn't see much, but I was able to get a few decent videos. Then we decided to check out Picadilly Circus and Soho, so we took the underground over and walked around for a bit until lunch. We decided to go to St. James' Pub, where we had fish and chips, British beer and Swedish hard cider, all of which were delicious. Then we stumbled upon Carnaby Street, which is a cobblestone, pedestrian only road lined with shops. We went into Monki, where I found an incredible cream colored cable knit sweater for 25 pounds, and convinced myself it wasn't expensive since it was only "25". After buying it, I realized I had just spent nearly 40 American Dollars on one sweater. Lesson number 1: converting pounds to dollars is not fun. Later that evening, we drove with my aunt and 8 year old cousin Langan to their weekend home in the countryside. The home they rent belongs to a very important English duke, who is one of the most prominent land owners in the UK. The home is in a small, somewhat remote village called Badminton, where all the homes are hundreds of years old and the scenery looks like something out of a fairy tale. Myrissa and I shared a cozy room in the attic of the house slept like babies under a thick down comforter and cashmere blanket. We kept joking that we felt like we were on a romantic getaway weekend. In the morning, my aunt took Myrissa and I to a nearby town called Teterby, where we walked around, shopped and had lunch. The town is hundreds of years old and is apparently a very popular place to visit. My aunt brought us to beautiful boutique shops, where the prices were totally outrageous, but it was fun to try things on anyway. We went into a store that sold gorgeous jackets; so gorgeous that even Kate Middleton shops there. I fell completely in love with a dark brown leather jacket that cost about 1,000$. We had lunch, then went back to the house where my uncle and 6 year old cousin Finnian had just arrived from London. It was Finnian's birthday and he'd had a tee-ball game that morning, during which he hit a grand slam. We had cupcakes for his birthday, took a walk around the estate, where we saw the duke's enormous palace, and ate some delicious pasta carbonara. They have a trampoline in the backyard, so we bounced around on there for a while and then went to feed the neighbors pigs with Finnian. On the way we came across a treehouse with a zip line coming out of it, and despite being scared, all three of us gave the zip line a try. It hurt my hands and I almost crashed into a tree, but it was so fun anyway. Then Myrissa and I drank some French wine that my aunt gave us and went to sleep. Today was my aunts birthday. We went to an old English inn and restaurant for her birthday brunch, where we had champagne, wine, hard cider, roasted chicken, poached eggs with crab meat, goat cheese with beets, some sort of puréed liver spread on toast, and homemade ice cream for desert. We decided to be adventurous and try some new things, being that we're in Europe. Tonight we came back to London and walked around Chelsea and Kensington, where we found the mom's house from The Parent Trap, but were sad to see that it is under construction. We walked by Harrods, which was lit up so beautifully, then decided to try some British McDonald's, which was cool because they had waffle fries. When we walked home, we got really lost somewhere in the Chelsea neighborhood, which was tough because so many of the houses look the same here. Finally we were so tired that we hailed a cab, only to realize we were literally down the road from my aunts house and paid for a cab for no reason. Lesson number 2: bring a map everywhere we go. Sorry for any typos and bad grammar; I'm typing this on my iPad and it's really hard!