A purrrfect Day 1

Our trip started out with a red-eye flight out of Atlanta. British Airways must've known that this was Whitney's first major trip overseas, because they inducted her into the World Traveller Club! presh. 

I'm usually conflicted about red-eye flights because it's hard to actually get restful sleep--especially when your seat reclines only 3.289 degrees--but with a little positive thought and help from Uncle Ambien, we got a decent rest. 

Upon landing in Heathrow, we had priorities: luggage, customs, and Percy Pigs from Marks&Spencer. 

I'm a bit of a gummy connoisseur, and when I stumbled upon these gems last year in London, I knew that I'd spend every waking day pining after them until I returned (note: a contributing factor to London being our first stop). 

After pigging out on percies and only slightly pondering how gummy is basically just sugary dissolved animal tendons, we were ready to catch the Tube (about an hour from Heathrow to downtown London). 

Okay, so maybe we didn't get as rested on the flight as we'd thought. 

We checked in to our hostel, Keystone House Hostel, which is conveniently adjacent to St. Pancreas/Kings Crossing Station (yes, THAT Kings Crossing). After briefly setting up our room, which didn't take much time as our room is the size of an under-the-staircase cupboard, we were off to explore!

We saw telephone booths pretty frequently, which was surprising due to the prevalence of mobile phones (they're called mobiles over here. Just trying to fit in.). And they were functioning phone booths; not just props for tacky, cliché tourist photos. 

Double V for W.

We stopped into the British Museum, which houses some of the top ancient artifacts (Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek... one of the benefits of a country that once ruled a quarter of the world). We popped in our earbuds to listen to an audio guide by our buddy Rick Steves and paused for a selvie. 

We (/I) were super excited to see all the cat worship of the Ancients. Obviously they had it right. 

Even the Assyrians recognized the ferocity of the cat family and included them in statues. Whitney lurves posing felinely. 

We barely started with the Assyrians when they closed the museum, so we'll hopefully make it back to see more. 

But then it was dinner time!!! We'd walked through Russell Square on our way to the museum, so decided to picnic it up. A Tesco was around the corner, so we picked up a few noshes. The Ploughman sandwich is a delicious sandwich that I had in Ireland last year and looked forward to having again (but not with as much fervor as Percy Pigs). 

Trekking back to Russell Square, we enjoyed our foods while people watching (including a pair of actors rehearsing lines, dog walkers, and a group of exercisers  performing floppy burpees). 

Then we walked across town to visit St. James's Park and Buckingham Palace, and stopped at Trafalgar Square to visit moar cats. 

Whitney felt at home. 

The sun started setting and cooling off, so we hopped on to the upper deck of a double decker to return to the hostel. 

The roads were very narrow at times, and we felt like we were in the squeezable Midnight Bus. 

Back at the hostel, we settled in for the night. Remember how we were conveniently located next to a major subway terminal, well from our underground room we enjoyed falling asleep to the tuh-tuh-DUHs of frequent Tube trains. Ah, the sounds of London!