when life hands you London.

Tee. Sweater. Jeans. Sandals. Backpack.

On the day before our last day in Europe, fate threw us a little curve ball.  As we were making our way back up to Paris through Burgundy on Sunday, we got a text from the airline.  Our Monday evening flight had been cancelled.  We already had a tight timeline for getting home, since we were landing just barely more than 24 hours before the kids were meant to start school Wednesday morning.  And now that small window of time was rapidly shrinking.

When Craig called the airline their initial estimate was that the soonest they could get us all home was a week later.

Here’s the thing.  I’m what you call a “natural over-reactor.”  I come from a long line of over-reactors.  And a situation like this, being stranded in Europe with 4 kids, the day before they’re supposed to start school would have had me majorly stressed out a few years ago, maybe even a few weeks before this trip.

But it didn’t.  In fact, neither Craig nor I felt the least bit worried about it.  And you know, it was one of those beautiful epiphany moments when you discover a fundamental secret of life.

And here’s this one:

Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure.

So here’s how it all worked out.  After two hours on the phone with the airline, they found us a flight home.  The plan was to leave Paris as scheduled and take a quick stop-over in London, spend the day there and fly home the next night, arriving home the night before the kids were set to start school.

 Norwegian air was wonderfully accommodating, they put us in a hotel in London for the night, and bought us dinner and breakfast the next day.  We were thrilled.  What looked like an unfortunate bit of bad luck had turned out to be rather fortunate indeed.  And I’m so glad that neither of us lost our cool, because everything turned out better than we could have hoped for.  A bonus day in London, it was like a dream come true.

When life hands you London, you don’t ask questions, you just make the most of every single minute.

Here’s what we did with those minutes.

The first thing I did was reach out to all you lovely readers on my insta-stories and ask for recommendations.  Since we hadn’t planned a stop in London, I really hadn’t done any research on the city, and didn’t really have a clue what we should do with the 5-7 hours that we had.  It turned out to be such a great idea, because we got the BEST suggestions and were really able to maximize our short time in the lovely city of London.  (I cannot wait to go back soon!  Already planning a trip in my head…)

We flew into Gatwick airport, and that is where our hotel was as well, so first thing bright and early Monday morning we hopped on the express train and rode into London.  It was a quick 1/2 hour ride through the prettiest English countryside and then we were in the city.  We walked from Victoria station over to Buckingham Palace because, obviously that’s the first thing you’ve got to see!  I could not believe how pretty it was.

The overwhelming response on what we should do with a few hours in the city, was to take a double decker bus tour.  I’m not usually an overly-touristy type person, but this was such a great suggestion, and since so many people recommended it, we ended up doing that.  It was AWESOME!  We were able to see the whole pretty city, the weather was nice, not hot, not too cool.  Our guide was cheeky and funny, shared a ton of great history with us, and was really helpful. Obviously I would have loved to dive deeper into the city, but if you only have a few hours in London I really think its the very best thing to do.  We took the Big Bus tour, and it stops at the Tower of London where we were able to catch a boat on the Thames back up to Parliament.  The boat ride was included in the ticket price, so I felt is was a really great value, and you can hop on and hop off the bus as you want to tour different spots around the city.

We all loved seeing the London Eye, Big Ben (even though he’s currently covered in scaffolding), the London Bridge, Parliament, and I could go on and on.  So many iconic places I’ve learned and read about most of my life, and getting to see them in person was such an unexpected gift, I can’t feel anything but wonder and gratitude for how serendipitouslty the whole situation turned out.

On our walk back to Victoria Station we popped into The Laughing Halibut and had some of the best Fish and Chips of my life.  After our meal we caught the train back to Gatwick from Victoria Station and headed home to New England.  It was a whirlwind, but such a lovely gift at the end of an already magical trip.

Read more about our trip here: Paris with kids, a day in Comar, How to book a Vacation photographer, my kids’ European capsules.