London: Coming Home

We packed up our suitcases and checked out of our hotel around 10 am. We spent a little time in the Business Centre checking flight loads again, and coming up with more contingencies. We got a breakfast croissant at the kiosk in the Tube station, made with delicious ham and emmental cheese. We scrounged together the rest of our change to pay for our tube ride to Heathrow. It took about 30 minutes to get to LHR terminal 4. We checked in at the kiosk, went through security, and walked around the airport to pass the time until our flight boarded. We got a few snacks and drinks, and crossed our fingers for seat assignments. We missed out on business class by two passengers, and got seat assignments one row apart. A nice passenger offered to let us sit together (giving up an aisle seat for a middle...talk about a good samaritan!)

We napped, snacked, read, and watched movies. I watched "Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging," "The Hangover," and "My Life in Ruins." The flight was slightly longer back to the US, approximately 10 hours. We came back through customs, grabbed some dinner, and checked out the flight boards. We were hoping to catch a 9 pm flight to SLC, but we still had about 3 hours till boarding. Taylor went down to Ops to check Deltanet, and it was pretty evident we wouldn't make it on that flight. We looked at alternate flights through DEN, HOU, ABQ, PHX, MEM, OMA, DFW, DTW, CVG and TUS, but all of those cities would require an overnight stay before the connecting flight to SLC. We were exhausted from the day of traveling, and decided to call it a night. Taylor got a $36 crew-rate hotel (with free wifi...hallelujah!)

In the morning, flight loads didn't look any better, and we wanted a to find the most certain option for getting back to SLC...which ended up being San Antonio. Once in SAT, we ate lunch at Las Palapas Mexican Grill in Terminal 1. I've got to put in a plug for this place...very delicious food and insanely inexpensive for airport food. Two full meals with drinks, tax and tip came to $16. We were happy when our names were called for a seat assignment, and even more happy that we had seats in first class. First class in a short flight on a CRJ isn't too swanky, just more opportunities for free drinks and more legroom.

We arrived in SLC in the late afternoon, picked up our car, and headed down to Lehi to pick up Rosie from my parents' house. We shared our trip pictures with them, and got back to SF around 8:00. It was an exhausting 2 days of travel home....but it was totally worth it.

London: Day Three

Saturday was our "touristy" day. We had a lot to see, and only one day to do it in. We grabbed breakfast and lunch from Tesco, and headed for the Tube. We started at Buckingham Palace. We arrived 45 minutes before the Changing of the Guards. After about 10 minutes, the crowds were so unruly that we gave each other a mutual "Are these crowds bugging you as much as they're bugging me?" glance. We decided to walk around the attractions nearby and see how the crowds were as the procession started.People, people everywhere

St. James Park

We listened to a few songs by a military band. The highlight was a orchestral version of "One Moment in Time." The epitome of British culture, let me tell ya!

And now a word from our sponsors...

One of my product placement photos (I've got a few more on Facebook) I thought it was funny that the Dr. Pepper Zero was "sweetened with vegetable extracts." It tasted less sweet than Diet Dr. Pepper. Coca-Cola owns the Dr. Pepper licensing in the UK, thus the "zero" brand name. UK Coke was awesome - sweetened with cane sugar, not HFCS. So was Pineapple Fanta. Lilt was pretty good, but too tart for my taste. I HATED the Diet Coke with Cherry....tasted like rancid cough syrup.

Westminster Abbey

Houses of Parliament (aka Big Ben). I thought it was the most beautiful thing I saw on the whole trip. It sounds to touristy cliche, but it really was ornate and spectacular. The photos just don't do it justice.

Waiting for our boat ride down the River Thames

View from the Thames

The dome shaped building is called "The Gherkin." I also heard others call it the "Towering Innuendo," and the "Crystal Phallus." Definitely one of the more modern buildings in the London skyline.

London Tower Bridge

Taylor in front of St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's Cathedral was the only paid attraction that we did on the trip. We were tempted by the London Eye and a double-decker bus tour, but I don't think anything we could have done would have been as awesome as St. Paul's. We toured several parts of the cathedral, and then started our trek up to the dome. After 250 steps, you reached the "Whispering Room." 150 steps later was an observation deck with this gorgeous view:

We ascended another 150ish stairs to the observation deck at the top of the dome. I was huffing and puffing, and very tired after all those stairs, but the view was definitely worth it!

Coming down was much easier!

We crossed the Milenneum Bridge to Tate Modern. We looked at exhibits on two floors.

We also saw the replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theater

View from the top of Tate Modern towards St. Paul's

Our legs and feet were aching by this point. The closest tube station happened to be closed, and we couldn't figure out which one to walk to. We ended up walking about 25 minutes to Waterloo station, and I felt like I was going to collapse (Yeah, I'm out of shape. Not used to walking 8+ hours in a day) Our last "must see" stop was Trafalgar Square...and that's where we went.


We got dinner at a pub called Garfunkels. Taylor got fish and chips, I got a chicken and mushroom pie with mash. For dessert, we had bread and butter pudding with warm custard.

We got one last view of the Square, and headed underground to go back to our hotel. We had about 30 pounds in cash left at this point, so we went to Tesco to pick up some sweets and souveniers to bring home. Chocolate digestives, Bird's custard, Smarties, KitKats, Fruit Pastilles, Jammy Dodgers, and Aero bars. I cannot even describe the look on Taylor's face as I kept piling sweets into the basket.
We got back to our hotel, and went into the Business Centre to use the internet (20 minutes per pound) We needed to check flight loads, and come up with backup plans in case our Heathrow to Atlanta flight fell through. In this process, we realized that our flight wasn't going to be free...we'd have to pay the taxes and tariffs to get back into the US. That increased the total price of our entire trip about 30%, but we still completed it all for less than a one-way ticket to London would have been. We are so grateful for the kind friends and family who allowed this trip to happen....and that's where most of this candy went to.

London: Day Two

This is the map to the Underground. If only more cities had a system this organized...

The tube kept us from having to drive around and make sense of all the roundabouts and people driving on the other side of the road. I probably would have killed us if I just drove out onto the road here.These mailboxes remind me of the movie "Help" where they're trying to cut off Ringo's finger...

Friday morning we did a lot of walking around. We were hesitant to use our cell phones ($1.29 per minute, $.50 per text) so we looked for a place that we could get breakfast and wifi. After not finding any other suitable options, we hunkered down at a Starbucks for about an hour. I got in touch with Emma and we made lunch plans. She and David would pick us up from the Croydon station, which was within the 1-6 Travelcard zone. We took the tube back to Victoria Station, and onto the overground train to East Croydon station. Unfortunately, the ticket agent unknowingly sold us a 1-2 zone Travelcard. When we tried to exit the Croydon station, the gate wouldn't release and we had to go to the "unpaid fare" window. The agent said we'd have to pay a twenty pound penalty each, but we talked her into just selling us the fare between Victoria and Croydon.

The first pub we went to was on a friends' reccomendation, but when we arrived they said they didn't have license for children to enter. Since Annabelle was with us, we asked for another suitable local pub. We drove to the Sandrock Pub. I got fish and chips with mushy peas, Taylor got bangers and mash. We had a lovely time visiting, and were sad we had so little time to spend with them.

David, me, and Emma

When they dropped us off at the train station, we totally flubbed on social ettiquite. We uncultured Americans just aren't used to those friendly cheek kisses! We'll get it right next time! We took the train back to Victoria, and spent the afternoon sightseeing.

First we went to the Science Museum. We knew we only had a few hours to spend there, so we focused on the medicine and aviation floors.

Taylor was in airplane heaven!

Spitfire

Assisting the Harrier Jet

This Rolls-Royce engine made me feel tiny (for once in my life)

For the next few hours, we did lots and lots of walking. We walked to Hyde Park, and it started to rain a little bit. We were blessed to have excellent sunny weather for the majority of the trip, but it wouldn't have been a true experience without some rain.

Prince Albert Memorial

Trying my hand at some funky artistic photography

Gardens in Hyde Park

Princess Diana Memorial Fountain

By the time we got the the Serpentine, it was raining pretty heavily. We took turns with the one umbrella we had, and both ended up pretty wet.



Next we walked to Harrods was so posh, which is one of the most fabulous department stores in the world. I felt silly walking around in my sopping wet clothes. We toured the several departments, but especially loved the food halls, It. If I'd wanted to pay 5 pounds per kilogram of eggplant, approximately $15/lb, this would have been the place.

Ah, the sweet confections that I dilligently avoided buying (but I did get a free hazelnut truffle. Yum!)

We walked around for a few minutes, but it was starting to get dark, and we didn't feel like staying out in the rain, so we took the tube back to Hammersmith.



We stopped at the Tesco market in the tube station and picked up sandwich fixings for dinner. We watched Zombieland after dinner, as well as some BBC. We had a pretty exhausting day, and decided to call it a night around 10:30 pm.