Mom and I got up early, drove to Indy in the Party Van, stopped and picked up Haley, then headed to Holly’s. We pottied at Holly’s and grabbed Duncan and were off like a herd of turtles. We stopped at Dairy Queen to get ice cream and give Natalie a hug good-bye and we were off!… like a herd of turtles.
At the airport, we gave Duncan goodbye smoochies and he drove off in the Party Van. Next, checking in and security.
Now, being a full-time viewer of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, I knew all about these new full-body scans that they do now, but what were the odds, right? Well, Rose’s odds on this trip, as you will learn by continuing to read the never-ending saga of this trip, were just right every time. Yep, I got pulled aside to go through the full body thing. I thought about yelling "Hey, don’t look at my junk" at them, but #1, I wasn’t sure if, as a female, I had junk… and #2, I didn’t want to spend my two-week vacation in the pokey. I did ask my usual, whether or not I could have a copy for my Christmas cards, but I was told that no one could see the scans… not even them. Which really made me want to inquire as to the point, but… (see #2 above). So I was through security and attempting to get my shoes back on when someone realized that my bag wasn’t there – and another guard comes up to me to ask it if it is mine. Turns out that the box of Cream of Wheat that we’d packed looked suspicious. Imagine what their reactions could have been (see #2 above) – mom just poured it all into a ziploc baggie (yes, an off-white, powder-like substance, in a baggie) – I’m the one who insisted on putting the baggie back into the box! Fortunately, me and the Cream of Wheat must’ve looked innocent enough because we finally made it onto the plane to Toronto.
In Toronto, we had to go through customs and the moment I’d been waiting for finally arrived. I was going to get a stamp in my passport!! Wait a minute… he told me I could go on through. What about my stamp!? I the guy if I couldn’t have a stamp… he said sure and gave me a stamp. Rather anti-climactic and unfulfilling, but it was still a stamp. Whoo hoo!
The flight to London was supposed to leave at 8:30 p.m. I don’t think we even got called to board until almost 10! But once we got settled, we were on our way to London!
The plane was nice, each seat had a video monitor on it and you could watch TV or movies or whatever from it. During the 6-7 hour flight, I watched Rango (animated with Johnny Depp) and Hall Pass (not worth my time figuring out what to put here, but it was better than Rango.) One unexpected nicety was that we were served dinner. Who serves food on planes anymore? After two crappy movies and a rather fitful nap, we arrived in London Heathrow at 9:30 AM.
First, customs and the receipt of another stamp in Ye Olde Passport. Again, not as exciting as I'd hoped, but we were now officially on the Mother Ship! Pretty exciting.
Our first task was to get to the apartment (or the "flat") we'd rented for the week. We found the underground or "tube" and hopped on.
Heathrow and our apartment were situated in the southwestern quadrant of the metropolis that is London. And the apartment was about 7-8 blocks (not sure that their definition of "block" is the same as ours, but...) from the closest tube station and going to the apartment, it was mostly downhill. The apartment was the lower floor of a two-story house. I think if we'd had the whole house, it would have been much likek the Dursleys' house in the Harry Potter movies - it even had a cupboard under the stairwell where we could have locked an unwanted relative for the evenings. As it was, it was a little smaller than we anticipated, considering there were four of us, but we were only there for the evenings, so didn't find it to be a problem. The wireless internet was not working, however, that we considered that to be a problem. Especially since I knew my beloved fans would be concerned if they did not hear from me. hmpf...Anyway, I took a shower and a short nap - not sure what the others did, but then we decided to set out in search of sustenance and then to go see London from the London Eye. So we took the tube to the appropriate station and then took a wrong turn upon leaving the station. However,
we could not complain as we discovered and had our first real "English" meal in a pub - the Camel and Artichoke. The inside was very reminiscent of the Jungle in downtown Evansville, for those who know what I'm talking about. And the food was very good. Holly had the ubiquitous fish and chips. I had a grilled chicken Cesaer salad of which I could only eat three ounces, of course. The great part came when I asked for a 'to-go' box for the remainder of my chicken and, after waiting about 15 minutes, the waitress came back with a plastic container! The British Airways London Millenium Eye is a giant ferris wheel type of ride that was built for
London's 2000 celebration. When you get on the ride, it takes about 30 minutes to make the entire circuit - while riding the Eye, you get a fabulous view of the bulk of the city or at least the buildings/sites on or near the Thames River. We were fortunate to have very nice weather and and we rode the Eye taking plenty of pics. I can't post all of the pics on this blog, of course, so I will try to post a representative selection and if you want to see the full photographic travelogue, you are encouraged to become my fiend on Facebook where all of the pics will be posted.After the Eye, we hit the ever-loving gift shop, or maybe even two! And then we trotted back to the tube station and found our way back to the apartment about 9pm... and it was still daylight! What's up with that?!
No comments:
Post a Comment