germany - for a day

part one of the Anaya adventure featured Frankfurt and a stop through in Brussels.

I'm not sure we brought enough bags...

we flew from Anchorage to Frankfurt directly. it was a ten hour flight.
phew.
ten hours where sleep was not a favourite pastime.
not even for the baby.

and honestly? it was fine.
there were no melt-downs, no fits.
amazing, really.
perhaps it was because they were so excited to finally be GOING.

I'm not sure the reason,but after a stern talking-to about not being unreasonable later, I just let them be.
they kept themselves occupied with books and the music players on the back of the seat screens.
and then, miraculously, we were there.
and Germany appeared outside the window.
postage stamp farms and wee villages.
greens and browns and flashing silver of the cars far below.

and then we were landing. (definitely not my favourite bit)
we were through customs and had our bags and THEN, we were in Frankfurt.
found our hotel and went walking.
we only had an afternoon and wanted to figure out our train connections for the next day so spent the rest of our time walking around the train station, people watching and snacking.

the next morning, we were all up early (due to the time change) but also to catch our train to London!
we made our first two connections without trouble.

our third connection, however, which was the train from Brussels to London, we missed.
there were several reasons we didn't make it and in the end, it turned out to be for the best.
they were most kind about rearranging our tickets and this allowed for us to get some lunch and relax a bit before boarding.
and finally we were on our way!

our first glimpse of the English countryside was GLORIOUS.
especially after the darkness of the tunnel (our train went under the water).
and finally, finally we were at St Pancras Station.

to be honest, there were tears.
if you can pardon the irreverence, a pilgrim to her mecca.

we were only in London for a day before we journeyed on to Kent for some much needed respite and time change adjustment. but we managed to do a few favourite things before we went on our way:

all photos taken with my iPhone 4s.