Where to stay in London?

I love London! I could definitely live there. London has always been my "hub" while traveling in the Europe/UK area. I always fly in to London and then go from there. Whether I'm going to Paris, Scotland, Ireland or a Contiki Tour accross Europe.

While in London, I've stayed at major hotels (Marriott's of course since I work for Marriott and get a sweet discount!), bed & breakfasts and once I also rented a room for a few weeks. All of my accomodations have been different and amazing in different ways.


Marriott Hotels:
It's nice to stay at these hotels every once in a while because they are much bigger than your typical "European" hotels. So if you've been hosteling it or staying in little European Inns where you've been sleeping in a tiny twin beds, this will be a nice luxury. However, I definitely endorse trying out a bed and breakfast at some point for some English charm!

A few I've stayed at:

London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square
http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/londt-london-marriott-hotel-grosvenor-square/
I think this is my favorite one. Near Oxford Street (5 min walk) which has tons of shopping and restaurants. Closest tube stop is Bond Street. Great location.

London Marriott Hotel Regents Park
http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/lonrp-london-marriott-hotel-regents-park/
I liked this one too. Closest tube stop is Swiss Cottage Station.

Renaissance Chancery Court London
http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/loncc-renaissance-chancery-court-london/
For me, this one was a little out of the way. Renaissance is still a Marriott, but it's fancier. Closest tube is Holborn Station.

London Marriott Hotel Marble Arch
http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/lonma-london-marriott-hotel-marble-arch/
I didn't stay at this one but my friends did. Still very nice. Closest tube is Edgware Road or Marble Arch.


Bed & Breakfasts:
http://www.londonhometohome.com/homes_central.html
(the one I stayed in is second on the website! my room was the one with the red twin bed!!)

I stayed at the "Kiln House" with my host Lee. She was super nice. I had a room on the main floor. The only room on the main floor. I had my own bathroom too. She had a continental breakfast set up for me each morning. However, she figured out what I'd actually eat and would just leave exactly that (instead of her huge spread of breakfast foods). She even made me hot water for my hot cider a few times! Her house is actually a historical landmark and has been featured in tours and in a book. Her house was an actual kiln. The kiln is now actually a dining room.

What I loved about staying at a bed and breakfast, is that you just get a whole different experience than if you were staying in a hotel. Just make sure your house is within walking distance to a tube station!

The "Kiln House"

A few more London Pics....

Tiffany's Taxi?!

Oh how I miss Pret a Manger!!




Ciao World Travelers!!

Train Rides to Scotland....

Rail Europe Travel….

I found a few pictures I had from traveling on the Rail Europe train. We traveled from London to Edinburgh, Scotland. You can check them out online. http://www.raileurope.com/ . They also have discounts for travelers 25 years old and under!

They have different classes of seating with different restrictions. We just got the economy seats. If the seats are not full, you can actually sit wherever you want. My friend and I got seats with a table to ourselves. Awesome!

I did find out that I can not face backwards while the train is moving. Nauseaus!! So I had to make sure my seat faced forward. Luckily my friend didn’t have that same problem so we were able to sit at our own table. And spread out our stuff. The views were great. Lots of green, lots of water and lots of sheep! They also have a snack car if you get hungry.

The train leaves from Kings Cross station in London. Kings Cross like in Harry Potter! Look for Platform 9 ¾ if you have some extra time. It does exist!


Gotta have your tunes on a trip like this. I'm not gonna lie, I totally have a Europe Trains playlist. Ha ha. Such a dork.



Train ride essentials: travel journal (my friend's), reading material & water of course. Oh and of course the previously mentioned iPod/Zune/etc.



Previous post on Scotland:
http://christinamg.blogspot.com/2008/06/edinburgh-scotland.html

Good Day Travel Peeps!!

Flying.....

Random pics of the day:



Can I tell you how much I love flying? I mean I really love it. I love airports and their little newstand gift shops. I love the excitement of knowing you are about to take a crazy trip and see new things and new experiences. I love knowing that I don't have to worry about work for x amount of days..... etc.

When I fly to London, I almost always use Virgin Atlantic. www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/us/index.jsp Each seat has it's own tv where you can watch movies, tv shows, track your flight, text message any guest on the same flight (seriously you can!), listen to music, meditate, etc. I would normally try to catch some zzz's while flying but I get so excited about all of the possibilities of catching up on movies and what not. I'm not gonna lie....I also kind of like the airplane food. Not always. But it's so cute on it's little tray with it's little wine glass and it's little salt and pepper. They also give you a little care packet with an eye mask for sleeping, ear plugs (just in case some people think it's happy hour and talk during the entire flight!), pen and paper, socks, a toothbrush and toothpaste! **sigh** It's the little things that entertain me.....

What I don't like about flying are the bathrooms. I mean seriously. Do I even need to explain why I don't like them? Anyways, here are a few pics from one of my flights to London.

Have a great day Travel Kiddos!





Previous London posts:

http://christinamg.blogspot.com/2008/05/london.html

http://christinamg.blogspot.com/2008/06/excerpts-from-travel-journal.html

I miss NYC....

Was going through some old pictures and thought I would start posting some of them randomly on my blog for funsies! (yes I said "funsies") Travel photos always cheer me up. They also make me miss all of the places I've been.

Oh New York, how I've missed you...



Some of my previous posts about NYC:

http://christinamg.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-york-city.html

http://christinamg.blogspot.com/2008/06/excerpts-from-travel-journal.html

Have a great day travel peeps!! :-)

Travel & Adventure Show- LA

So yeah.....I went a little crazy on brochures.






Got to meet Rick Steves and sit in on his seminar. http://www.ricksteves.com/ He reminded me of my Travel & Tourism teacher back in the day. He was enthusiastic about what he was talking about and for travel in general.



After listening to him speak about what makes his tours different from other tours and what people would be a good fit for his tours......I decided that I would most likely not be a good candidate for his tours.... your luggage has to be approximately 9 x 22 x 14! wtf! For those of you that don't want to do the math...that is the requirements of a carry-on at the airport. There is absolutely no way! The reasoning behind the small luggage is because they stay right downtown in main cities (as opposed to some of the bigger tour companies who stay outside of town in bigger hotels). Some of these main cities have lots of stairs, no elevators or a little bit of a hike since the bus cannot access some small areas in which these hotels may be located. Also, everyone carries their own luggage. The advantage is that you get some great family owned quaint hotels in some amazing cities right near all of the action. When all of the bigger tour buses have to leave for the night, you will still be there in the middle of everything! But yeah.....2 weeks worth of luggage in a carry-on?? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do that. :-)



We also got to listen to Samantha Brown speak. She is host of a few shows on the Travel Channel. Passport to Europe and Passport to Great Weekends and next season's Passport to Asia. http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Samantha_Brown She pretty much has the best job ever! Getting paid to travel and stay in wonderful places! Luckyyyyyy.

I put my name in all the drawings. I haven't won anything yet but I'm waiting for a phone call or an email telling me i've won a 6 night trip to Ireland or a round trip ticket on Jet Blue to anywhere they fly or one of the sweet gift baskets or the trip to Vietnam. ;-) I'll keep you posted!

LA Travel Show this weekend!!!!

So I just found out about this travel show coming up this weekend in Los Angeles. It's called the Los Angeles Times Travel & Adventure Show. The show will be at the Los Angeles Convention Center this Saturday 2/14 and Sunday 2/15. The cost to get in is $10 at the door or $8 if you purchase them online. Parking is $12 so car pool!! The show will be open to the public from 10am-5pm. http://www.latimes.com/extras/travelshow/index.html

I checked out the exhibitors list and they have some really awesome ones. A few that I am excited to see are:

Authentic Ireland- www.authenticireland.com
Car Italy And Tours- www.caritaly.com
Celebrity Cruises (Europe)- www.url.com
Contiki (Europe)- http://www.contiki.com/
Greek National Tourist Organization- http://www.visitgreece.gr/
Holland America-Cruise Stars- www.hollandamerica.com
Holand America Line Alaska- www.hollandamerica.com
Jet Blue- http://www.jetblue.com/
Oceana Cruises (Europe)- www.oceaniacruises.com
Travel Bound (Europe)- http://www.aaa.com/AAA_Travel/EuropeanVacations/european_vacation.htm
Travel Impressions Africa- http://www.travimp.com/brochures/ti_south_africa/index.html
Travel Indochina- www.travelindochina.com
US Department of State Passport Agency- www.travel.state.gov

Some of their sponsors are AAA, National Geographic Adventures and The Travel Channel.

Along with all of the booths, there will also be Destination Workshops, Speakers and chances to win some sweet prizes (trips!!!!!).

**Also, the US Department of State Passport Agency will be there and you can apply for a passport if you need one or renew your current passport. I will be renewing mine as I'm pretty sure it's almost expired. ;-) See the show's website for information on what you need to bring to the show if you are interested in getting a passport or renewing your current one. If you don't have a passport, it is always good to have on hand.....just in case!!!!

I am looking forward to collecting brochures and information and adding my name to all of the drawings. ha ha.

Hope you get a chance to check it out too!

I am SUPER excited!

Another Hike!

So, I'm going on another hike tomorrow. Well actually, today. (approx 8 hours from now. ek!) If I don't blog again.......I've been eaten by mountain lions.

I'm scared.....

Day Trips- Mud, Rivers & Mountain Lions, OH MY!

So, my friends and I decided that we wanted to go for a hike this weekend. There are a ton of hiking trails near my house. Unfortunately, it rained the night before and was still raining yesterday when we were planning to go. After calling the park rangers, we found that the hiking trails were closed. :*( After texting back and forth for about an hour, we decided to just pick up a trail from one of the entrances near my house. I did not know which trail this was or where it went but I knew there was an entrance from the side of the road near my house.

When we first walked onto the trail, we could still see houses and hear traffic but we decided to keep going. Then we came accross this sign.

Mountain Lions??!!! WTF!!! I read online (and I've heard stories) that there are mountain lions in our area but seriously.....for us to go into their territory? OMG I think we were crazy. But we decided to go on anyway.

The first part of the trail was a muddy mess (thanks rain!). Basically we slid down most of the way. It was like mud skiing or something. We laughed so hard going down this hill. Our shoes had inches of mud stuck to the bottoms of them which made us laugh, then we kept sliding which made us laugh more. It was just out of control for about 10 minutes.

Then we got to this:

Do not enter?? So what do we do? We enter. And this is what was behind.

A cliff with a small little trail on it.

We walked a bit and then came to this:

A creek. Hey who put that there?? Rude.

Hmmm how deep is it?? (don't mind the socks....we brought extras just in case. She wasn't wearing long pants and she wanted her legs covered just in case there was poison oak so I gave her my London socks. ha ha)

Pause for a picture:

We contemplated how we would get across. We threw big stones to create a path. Then I figured nothing would help so I ran across. Getting my feet soaked.

They threw more rocks. Then decided to take off their shoes instead. Such resourceful girls. :-)

Freezing and rocky.

Oh look.....another river to cross. Yay us! :-\

This time I took off my shoes too. The rocks in this particular river were smaller and painful on the feet. (notice our shoes on the other side of the river in the picture below. We threw them over so we wouldn't have to carry them.)

Nature Girls! (?)

All in all I think we crossed 4 rivers. Went on a few REALLY muddy tracks. Almost walked into what we presume could have been a "lion's den". It was a really creepy cave like place filled with water. We chose not to go investigate too much. It was a little scary!! It was a fun little outing and I had no idea that was all in my own "backyard"!

We walked back to the car absolutely filthy. We took off our muddy shoes socks and went home and took hot showers to wash the nature off of us. ha ha. Then we ate Taco Bell and watched movies all night. We deserved the lazy afternoon after our day of nature. :-)

Did I ever tell you......

I just remembered this and it cracked me up.

On one of my trips to London, my friend and I were on one of those big red bus tours where you can hop on and hop off at any stop. http://www.bigbustours.com/eng/london/default.aspx It was raining and yet we still decided to sit on the top of the bus which is open air. Well, it wasn't raining when we first got there, but it started sprinkling. We were just trying to enjoy the sites. Anyways, when we were leaving the bus and walking down the steps I full on slipped and fell on my a**!! While falling I kicked my friend who was in front of me. Luckily she did not fall too. I was so embarassed and she was asking me if I was ok, which I was (well except for my pride!). I practically pushed her off the bus telling her, "I'm fine, I'm fine", while everyone was staring at us. We were dying of laughter once we got off the bus. Probably for like 10 minutes.

Just thought I'd share..... :-)

While I was at lunch today, I was talking to one of my co-workers about traveling. We were talking about things happening when you travel that don't seem funny at the time but those are the things that stand out and those are the stories that you re tell about a million times. Like my friend losing her ATM card in the machine and taxi driver threatening us that he was going to call the police on us or almost missing our train to Paris and running down the corridor with our bags trying to get on the train before it left or my friend getting on the tube (subway) right as the doors were closing leaving me and her other friend behind and then turning around with a panicked expression on her face as the train left. (for those stories and much more....check out my previous blogs. he he) Some of these stories were definitely not funny at the time, but now are so hilarious.

Okay....back to work!

What a Historic Day!

I know this is a travel blog.......but I just had to post a blog about yesterday.


History has been made. And folks, we just lived through it. Yesterday, January 20, 2009 Barack Obama became the 44th President and the first African American President EVER! Yeah, it was kind of an amazing day.






I'm not gonna lie, I kind of wanted to take the day off and just watch all of the news coverage on tv. I didn't want to miss a thing. But duty calls and so do my bills. So I went to work anyways. On my hour drive to work, I was listening to the radio and everyone was just so emotional which was making me emotional. With that start to the day, I totally thought I was going to ball my eyes out in front of my colleagues/friends. ha ha... Luckily, my emotions stayed in tact during work. ;-) They did have a tv in our cafeteria and another upstairs in one of the meeting rooms. So, I got to watch the main inauguration and speeches. It was pretty awesome.


I got to watch some of the Neighborhood Ball. Beyonce sang At Last for the first dance of our new President and First Lady. It was a really sweet moment. I'll admit that sometimes Beyonce is not my favorite, but she looked great and sang great. I was thinking how crazy it must have felt to her to be singing at this historical event for our history making new President!

Our new Vice President, Joe Biden also made an appearance (and a few jokes!) and had a dance with his wife, Jill Biden.


I googled and found a few pictures to share to mark this event. Enjoy!




Wow, look at the crowd. Crazy! Sure wish I could have been there.




This picture cracks me up. And how cute is Malia filming everything.



Our 44th President and First Lady



So cute.





You think they need a nanny? I'm available!




The Obama Family- Barack, Michelle, Sasha & Malia