Train to London

On the 5th day, we grabbed our things, did a final once through, then left the apartment behind and walked up to the train station, where we caught a train that would take us down to london.  It was a little over 400 miles, and took us most of the day with all the stops the train made.  We also ended up in the "quiet" car of the train, which made me extremely nervous because, well, we have 4 kids.  However, since we'd been going, going, going, every day, they haven't had much screen time, and after giving them electronic happiness, they were more than quiet for the entire trip, which was wonderful for me, because I wasn't feeling too well.

Train station

I just want to take a moment to say, I really wasn't feeling well.  For the last 6-8 months or so that we were in Germany I was having some seriously weird stomach issues.  I was always sick to my stomach.  I rarely woke up feeling good, and I ended up losing some weight because I just didn't feel well enough to eat much of anything.  It was baffling, and it would surface sometimes 3-4 times a week.  On this morning, I was having issues, and I really just didnt' feel good.  It didn't help that I was stressing about the kids in the quiet car.  When we were almost to London, we hit a stop, and a little old lady stopped at my seat and told me that when she'd gotten on the train she was annoyed because she saw four kids, and had wanted the quiet car to avoid kids, however after having spent the last 5 or so hours with us, she just had to stop and tell me what a delight it had been traveling with them.  She then told me what a wonderful mother I must be to have such well behaved children.  It really made my day, because to be honest, I was as shocked as she was at how well behaved they were.

The train ride was long, and after a certain point, we were supposed to stop, get off, and find a different train to get us into London.  The conductor told us that we were fine to stay on this train, as long as the seats stayed empty.  Each of the seats had a little monitor above it that would flash available or occupied, and at each stop we'd check and make sure our seats stayed empty.  We had to hop a couple seats a couple times, but we made it into London in one piece... of course it was also in the middle of rush hour...... Insert ominous music here.

I'm going to say it right now... NEVER EVER EVER go on the tube in rush hour, and especially NEVER do it when you have suitcases, and four hungry, tired, children.  We had a system set up so that none of the kids, or luggage could "accidentally" miss a train and end up by themselves.  I was so tense, and I'm so amazed we didn't have any problems at all.  It was so crowded there were moments we didn't think we'd actually all fit on the train, and the sea of people would just push us around.  I was trying to cart around suitcases, and Davin, and the stroller, and Tayzia, and it was just the thing nightmares are made of.  We had a couple people help us out here and there, but most people just shoved past us, occasionally pushing us away from our kids.  It was scary.  I'll never do it again.  We eventually found our train, and took the ride into the outer edges of London, and then eventually found the street (more like alley way) that the apartment we were staying in was on.  It was kind of scary.  The apartment wasn't much better.  We were there though, and we were safe, and we all went to bed.