London Day 1

I arrived in London on Thursday night - the flight over was actually pretty nice because there were many empty seats, which meant I got a whole 3-seat row to myself! Even though I had only slept 4 hours the night before I wasn't too tired on the flight so spent the time working a bit, watching TV episodes on my computer (my seat thankfully had an outlet!) and reading my book. The food was pretty gross, but I had packed myself a bunch of snacks and a sandwich. Going through customs was pretty easy, but as David mentioned I went for an extra long stroll in the Heathrow airport after incorrectly following signs for the "trains" instead of the "underground". I hopped off at Russell Square and decided I didn't feel like waiting in line for the "lift" out of the subway so started up the stairs. I did notice the sign that said "Emergency Stairs" or something, but I did NOT notice the sign that said "this staircase contains 175 stairs, use only in an emergency". After spiraling up what seemed like an endless staircase I met up with David at the exit having felt like I'd run a mile. I should probably mention that David and I have now climbed that staircase twice together to avoid lift lines... so the 175 stairs aren't seeming quite as bad anymore.

We checked into the Hotel Russell (located right around the corner from the tube stop) and dropped our stuff in the room and then went out to find some food.

Picture of Hotel Russell, taken Sunday morning

Staircase going down to the lobby from our room at Hotel Russell

Another photo of the staircase 

Given that it was 11pm at night we didn't find too many places within walking distance that were still serving dinner, and after deciding against Subway and Pizza Hut for obvious reasons we ended up at a small "French" restaurant called Denise's that had a very non-French serving staff but tasty enough food.  

Photo of Denise's from their website, we didn't bring our camera