England #1: We Depart the US and Arrive in London

We set off for our England Adventure on Friday, April 28, although since we flew out of Charlotte and wanted to just take one car to the airport, I spent Thursday night at my dad’s, who is in the same town as Kim. So of course I ended up spending another night there when we returned, as we didn’t get back to Asheville until around 10 PM on May 13. Which meant two extra nights away for me, and in retrospect I really wondered why it never occurred to me to just meet at Mark’s mom’s house, which is about an hour’s drive and on the way to Charlotte from different directions for each of us. We could have left one car there. Never crossed my mind.

But whatever! Our flight wasn’t until 3:30 Friday afternoon, and we left at a reasonable time for the 2-ish hour drive to Charlotte. Despite Kim telling me at 8:30 the night before that she still wasn’t packed and had to go shopping for a microwave because hers had died and her nephew, who was dog-and-cat sitting for her, had to have a microwave!! And I was already experiencing that lovely Pre-Trip Panic when you start thinking of all the things that could go wrong and doubting your own packing success, and realizing that your fucking suitcase weighs much more than it did when you originally packed it, despite nothing being added to it but (apparently) Magic Invisible Bricks. So you’re also trying to do some last-minute rearranging and abandoning of previously seemingly indispensable stuff.

Also, I was worried about my dad who had a weird sore on his leg that hadn’t healed despite several trips to the doctor (he’s diabetic so that’s a big worry) and who currently was having to sit with his leg elevated and not go anywhere or do anything for an entire week. And also about Baker B, who had been sick for weeks with a weird respiratory … thing. That I’d also had, and probably gave to him, although mine was pretty much gone by then (I did have a whole new round of antibiotics from the doctor if I needed them while gone- which I didn’t). He’s NEVER sick, not for more than a day or two, so he was pretty convinced that he was not going to live until I returned. He was on his second round of drugs, which is unheard of for him. He never even needs a first round of drugs.

Spoiler Alert: Both recovered while I was gone, and are fine. But I was freaking out over all sorts of things the night before, and just wanted to be on the plane. Or, even better, OFF the plane and in England! OH and Kim ended up leaving the nephew some money so he could go buy a microwave himself at a normal time of day.

We ended up making it to the airport in plenty of time and getting through Security with no issues. Then our plane was delayed for ages taking off – I think at least an hour- because, according to our pilot, they had to restock paper products, and then someone was supposed to bring him something to sign and he was still waiting on it. Luckily our connecting flight in Newark was also delayed, because we only had about an hour and a half between flights, and we had to hike approximately a million miles to get to our connector gate. Our connector gate was 98 and we got off the Charlotte plane at 115 so thought, oh, good! That’s not too far! Then bizarrely the gate numbers reverted to 100, then to 70. So it ended up being a LONG LONG way. But that was the only nerve-wracking situation, and we made it.

The flight was strangely pleasant, because it was almost empty. The middle section was rows of four seats across, and there was nobody in most of them. So I moved over to the one beside us, put down the armrests, and had a makeshift bed. And even managed to doze for a few hours.

We arrived in London (yippee!!!) at 6:45 or so London Time, which was about 1:45 in the morning our time, and made it through customs fairly quickly and with no problems. We’d decided to stay that night in London after discovering it’s about a four hour drive to where we were going in Cornwall, and driving for four hours on England roads for the first time in years after an all-night flight seemed like a really bad idea. And that way we got to see a little of London too! I loooove London, so was very pleased to at least visit it again for a few hours. We stayed at the Ibis Heathrow, which was close to the airport and a good deal on Priceline (around $70). One of the perks was they would let you store your luggage with them until you could check in (check in was 3:00 in the afternoon), but as it turned out they would let you check in early for $10 extra. Actually, ten pounds but with the exchange rate post-Brexit vote, it was like $12-ish. WELL worth it, as we could take showers and have a nap before taking off for town.

Sadly I managed not to take ANY pictures of the hotel. We found out why it was so cheap – it was TINY. The advertised twin beds were actually shoved together because that’s the only way they would fit in the room. So basically we got to share a bed, although having separate covers and separate mattresses made it much less same-beddy. We didn’t disturb each other by moving around. It was weird, though – I am not used to sharing a bed with anyone except Baker B! But it was otherwise a very comfortable room, and also very convenient along with being very cheap, so that was okay.

Once revived, we set off for London proper! We took the hotel shuttle back to the airport and got the tube to Piccadilly. And just walked around. We didn’t really have enough time to do anything major, and had seen a lot of the touristy stuff on previous trips like Westminster Abbey and London Eye and the Tower and St Paul’s – and just walking around appealed to both of us. So we got off the tube at Piccadilly, walked down to Trafalgar Square, though St James Park, back up near Soho and had dinner (aaggh! I forget where we ate! I’ve written it all down in a travel journal but don’t have it with me. It was very crowded with theatre-goers and I had really good fish and chips) (AH- it was the Angus Steakhouse in Soho. A steakhouse did not sound appealing, but again- very very crowded, excellent fish and chips), back down to Westminster, then up the South Bank to Blackfrier’s Bridge and got the tube back to Heathrow after having a beer at Doggets Coat and Badge, a pub at the bridge. It was very nice, as we hadn’t seen a lot of it- we’d not been through St James park before, or beyond the London Eye on that part of the South Bank.

I’ll just note here that poor Kim had serious knee problems the entire trip. She fell at work a couple of weeks before we left – she’s a nurse, and someone had stuck a pillow partway under a bed and she was rushing around doing twenty things at once as nurses do, and fell over it, landing full-force on her knee. So although she kept trying to pretend she was fine, her knee and leg bothered her the whole time and we did a LOT of walking. She’d had it checked out when it happened and again before we left, and they thought it was okay, but when she got back and had an MRI it turns out there are all kinds of things wrong – one of which is a completely torn-in-two ligament. But she didn’t let it stop her, although I think she overdid it more than once. The good thing is that she’s doing light desk work now and getting physical therapy, and although she probably will have to have knee replacement surgery at some point, they think she’ll be able to put it off, hopefully for a long time. She’d lost a lot of weight before we went – and before she fell – luckily, or it would have been even worse.

But, back to the fun stuff- pictures!

Waiting on our flight at Charlotte, where we arrived early enough to have dinner and a beer-

Not sure why this is so tiny – Kim took it with her brand new camera which is a twin to my newish camera, and must have had it set on very small. Fortunately I don’t think her others are set like that.

The UK Border! After I took this I realized you’re not supposed to take pictures there. But I didn’t get arrested.

Welcome to Heathrow! As it turned out, we saw this welcoming sign more often than was strictly necessary.

The tube!! I love riding the tube-

Kim being all touristy.

Pretty St James Park:

Weird Big Foot Birds:

Lord Nelson:

Looming Churchill:

Big Ben and The London Eye and all the Westminster stuff:

From the South Bank:

The London Eye:

Blackfrier’s Bridge:

Doggets Coat and Badge- sadly I had my beer turned around so I can’t see what it was. We were right on the Thames but couldn’t see outside from where we were sitting. There was quite a crowd.

I was a little sad at not seeing Tower Bridge, my favorite bridge ever, because we didn’t make it that far up the South Bank .. but look! There it is, from the tube platform!!

And St Paul’s!

And that is QUITE enough for one entry.

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Last updated July 03, 2017