So what an adventure this has been thus far.
We flew through Boston of which we sprinted through the airport to make our connection to London’s Heathrow airport. It was the last flight of the night so I was determined to make it. Alas we did and were not the only ones in the same boat.
Our flight across the pond was uneventful. Airplane food was airplane food. I slept for a majority of the flight, Alan… not so much. The flight attendant gave us a bottle of champagne as a congratulatory gift which seemed like a great way to start our trip.
We arrived at Heathrow and had the smoothest customs trip ever. We got separated because Alan had to claim the champagne which put me out in the lobby first, completely missing the surprise Alan got me. He had gotten a car for hire to take us into London, about an hour away. It was a nice ride to the airport. The driver showed us a lot of the sights along the way.
It is the hottest day in 5 years here in London. A whopping 80 degrees F folks.
We had a bit of a hotel snafu and ended up taking a cab to another hotel. No worries we have a bed. We also have had some technological issues as well but seem to be making progress.
We decide to head out to find food and try to fight our jet lag. Boy were we successful. This now means we have to figure out the tube. After letting 3 trains go without us we decide what the hell we are getting on. We stop for lunch and have ourselves some fish and chips at a place called the Master Gunner in the Financial District. We then head to be tourists at the London Eye. That was pretty neat being able to see all of London. We wander around a bit after that and decide to head to the hotel. In process we change plans and start walking for dinner. We ask a local who recommended Kennedy’s. Alan had sea bass and I had prawns. It was good despite my palate being off from flying.
We begin to make our plan for the next day at dinner. We head home to go to bed. It was 9 at that point. I thought that was pretty good for being up from forever.
Alan woke up at 4 or so in the morning and went in search of some stuff to fix our technology issues. No luck so he came back to bed. We woke up and headed for breakfast. This was interesting. We found a corner market and bought some things. All of which were disgusting and found McDonalds. McDonalds in London does not equal McDonald’s in Columbus Ohio. My egg mcmuffin did not come with Canadian bacon. We moved on from there to head to MI-6.
We took pictures from the sides and back because I was slightly intimidated by the armed guards at the front gates. From there we took the underground to Trafalgar Square. We did the usual tourist thing taking photos. We headed to the “tkts” booth for cheap theater tickets for tonight. We ended up with tickets to Butley. A British comedy that wasn’t bad, however Alan and I don’t get British humor.
From there we headed to the Horseguards parade. This is where Prince William and Harry drove through the gravel lot and through the arches on the way to Westminster Abby. It is also where the beach volleyball will be for next years’ Olympics. We watched the changing of the Horse Guards and headed to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. Along the way we stopped to see the Ministry of Defense building and 10 Downing where the Prime Minister lives. We stood on the wall above a park and saw the parade pass by but did not see the change in front of Buckingham palace.
Rick Steve’s recommend Ye Ole Chesire Cheese as a good pub so that is where we went for lunch. The current building was “last remodeled in 1667”. Alan had bangers and mash and I had mushroom stroganoff. Both were good. We headed back to the hotel for a nap and to yet again fix technological issues.
I napped and Alan joined me after getting his phone working so we have GPS for our trip to France and Germany. We woke up and got ready so we could go to dinner and our show. We wandered around after the show for a bit and headed home on the tube. We struggled with our tube tickets not working but made it home.
We are up extremely early tomorrow to take the Eurostar (bullet train) to Paris to pick up the car to venture onto Germany.
Mr. & Mrs. Green
