Trip Update.

I've been woefully neglectful of this, but I've just been busy and tired. Here's a summary and I'll update more later.

MONDAY
Flight from Nashville to Chicago. I slept at the airport and the entire way to Chicago. Short layover there--like 2 hours. Uneventful, if cramped, flight to London.

TUESDAY
Arrival at Heathrow. Waited about 30 minutes in Passport Control and then on to baggage where our bags were all waiting for us. Quick trip to the loo to change my clothes and we were off to Heathrow Connect to travel to Paddington Station. While there, we hit the ATMs for some pounds and EAT for some lunch.

Arrived in Paddington with our piles of luggage (as God is my witness, I shall never travel with a big suitcase again) and grabbed a cab to take us to the flat's check-in site. We were there at 11.30 and couldn't check in until 2.00, so we dropped our bags and went out--after I changed clothes yet again because I was FREEZING in a skirt and tights.

We walked up and purchased our Travel Cards to use while there--23.10 (so 46 bucks) or so each. The good news is that Five is able to use a child's 1 pound card for all day travel, so that sort of balances out. Once we had our travel cards, we headed over to Oxford Street for some shopping at Primark. Then we took a bus up to Westminster so that Five could see the Abbey and Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. He was suitably impressed. Rode the bus and got an idea of what was where.

Back to the office to check in. The trek from the office to the flat was hellacious, to put it mildly. Did I mention that I am NEVER taking a big suitcase to London again? We were nearly dead by the time we arrived. The flat turned out to be lovely--small, but it's a studio in London, so we expected that.

Once we had settled our stuff in, we headed up to Tesco Express on Queensway for groceries--ended up stopping at a Spar (?), too. Bought milk, water, butter, juice and the like. Early night that night--we were all half dead--ate leftover sandwiches and Five made mac and cheese (we brought from home).

WEDNESDAY

Five and I were going to go on a Beatles tour while Mom checked out the National Gallery, but I'm a bonehead and didn't check the brochure, so we were at the right location, but three hours too early. Ooops. He took it well--we're going next Wednesday instead. We had three hours to kill before we were meeting Mom, so he and I made it to Trafalgar Sq. from Tottenham Ct. Rd. via Leicster Sq. and Chinatown (there was preparation for a movie premiere going on in the square at the Odeon, which was cool to see). At Trafalgar we took pictures at the foot of the Nelson Column with the lions, then we decided to head down to see Buckingham Palace--we walked the Mall. Not a short walk, but not too terribly painful, either. We wandered around there for a bit and then walked on up to Victoria Station to catch a bus back to Trafalgar. Went into the station just to check it out, grabbed a snack from Starbucks and hit the bus. When we arrived at Trafalgar, Mom was waiting for us, so we all went over to the Pret there for lunch and then back for an hour to look at the pictures. Five was fairly bored, but did find some that interested him. I cannot for the life of me remember what we did that night--I'll have to check the pictures and figure it out.

THURSDAY
Big touristy event day: Tower of London in the morning and British Museum after lunch. This? is a helluva lot of walking. I mean a HELL of a lot. Feet were screaming by day's end, but we had a great time at both places. Excellent guide on the Yeoman Warder (Beefeater) tour--Paul. Spent a lot of time in the Egyptian exhibits at the museum. After all of this, we decided to make our way to the Eye for them to ride. I waited and read the paper--they enjoyed it. Only abouta 30 minute wait from ticket queue to getting on the ride.

Dinner in the pub.

FRIDAY
Leather lane
Silver Vaults
Borough
St. Paul's
pizza

SATURDAY
Portobello Rd
Camden Town
Kensington Gardens and Broad Walk
Waffle House in Bayswater
London Walk Ghosts of the Old City

Busy Weekend

We did a great deal of touristy-type things this weekend. So far, so good.

On Saturday we made our way to Camden Town for the markets. It is much better to visit them in sunshine than in rain and while wearing tennies instead of flip-flops as I did during my last visit. We wandered the stalls for over an hour and found all sorts of fun things. I got a very cute hat.

We decided to take a bus from Camden to the main part of the city, so we hopped on the number 24, which takes a straight shot into the heart of London, past all the touristy spots. A great route, but it doesn't stop at Victoria Station as I thought it did, so we ended up getting off at Pimlico. Typical for me--I have to overshoot my destination at least once every trip. It's much more frustrating when you have six other people tagging along, though.

From Pimlico, it was on to Harrod's for requisite touristy shopping and lunch in Knightsbridge. Much shopping was done, lunch was eaten in a very crowded McDonald's (where three of us carried in our Eat bags and just bought chips and drinks). Then we headed bac to Earl's Court to drop our stuff and make our way over to Covent Garden to look arounda bit before dinner. It was packed with people and I took two of the kids on a search for the Foot Locker. We were given at least four sets of directions as to how to find the silly place, but none of them were exactly spot on. We walked most of the way around the piazza of Covent Garden, then up the hill to the tube station and down one of the side streets. We made it all the way to Leicester Square and still no Foot Locker. Up another little side street--still no Foot Locker. We sat by a pillar for awhile, just assessing the situation and Matt asked several folks for directions, but none of them had any idea. Finally, we just decided to try one more street and set off back up the hill to the Tube and just on past it. Tucked in among all sorts of little shops, on a tiny little pedestrian street, we found it. We were jubilant. He was able to look around and find some shoes that he liked, but since they were 54 pounds, which is about $108 right now, he didn't get them. But we foudn it, which was most impressive.

Dinner was Chinese, but since Matt and Erin aren't big fans, we sought out another choice and ended up at Bella Italia. We had pizza and it was really good. Garlic bread too--yum.

To wrap up the night, we went to see Blue Man Group. Weird show, but that is to be expected, I suppose. Lots of flourescent lights, fluids flying and great percussion. I wouldn't go see it on my own again, but would absolutely take kids. It was very dynamic.

Sunday we headed to Oxford and Stratford--lots of bus riding for very little touring time, IMO, but it was nice to get out of the city. Stratford is incredibly overdone--very Gatlinburgish, so I don't really care to go back. Cute little shops and stuff, but overpriced.

Will wrap up the trip tales soon. Must recover from jetlag now.

fun with keyboards

not even going to try to use the caps because the shift key is in an unfamiliar place and when i try to use it, i end up with \\\\ instead. so no caps. sorry.

it's saturday--we're about halfway done with our trip . we spent today on shopping excursions. we started off in camden town at the camden market, which was fun. i found some killer coats and i am hoping that they will still have some type of coat in june when i come back...didn't want to buy one today. i bought a hat instead. it's olive and all distressed and soooo not something i would spend money on back home, but i like it, so bought.

then we went to harrods, which was positively mobbed with touristst and since i'm no longer eating sweets, sort of a bore for me. it was nice to see reactions to it, though. after that we went to lunch at mc'ds. yum. not. two of the adults and i stopped at eat. on the way and got a sandwich, then went to get fries. mcds was crammed full of people and we barely managed to get a table for the group, but we did. i saved half of my sandwich to eat later ebcause i can't eat a whole one of the ciabatta ham and swiss. well, somehow the stupid thing got thrown away when we left. that makes me ill, partly because it cost £3.53 9 (X2 for the dollar amount), but mostly because i was looking forward to eating it tonight when i got back to the hotel. oh well.

then we headed over to covent garden after stopping at the hotel. i wandered around covent garden, all the way back down to leicster square and then finally to soho looking for a foot locker for one of the kids. i thought we would never find it--we got different directions from every person whom we asked. finally, after almost 40 minutes of looking, we found it.

dinner was chinese, but all i would eat was the carby part and two of the kids wouldn't eat any of it, so we went and had dinner at bella italia instead. very good. we had garlic bread and pizza---carbs go better with cheese.

am off to go see blue man group now. it doesn't start until nine. i imagine i will be sound asleep 10 minutes into the show. i'm starting to feel the sleep deprivation today.

Bullet Points So Far

I need to write more, but I'm so freaking tired that I can't make cohesive paragraphs, so here are random notes:

1. I still adore the Tube.

2. Leicster Square gets less amusing and entertaining the more I go there.

3. London hospitals rock--they give out free crutches and health care to Americans who trip on bumpy sidewalks and get bad ankle sprains (not me, one of our group).

4. Wicked is a phenomonal musical.

5. there is really no reason to eat baked beans for breakfast that I can think of.

6. Americans have no room to talk about dominance and superiority until they can match the Tower of London in age, grandeur, backstory or bling.

7. EAT. is still my favorite restaurant.

8. I love to hear people say, "Cheers".

9. London women wear some bad, bad makeup.

10. I would move here in a heartbeat.

Weird Look-A-Like Things London

i cannot use caps--the shift key is in a weird place. those of you that may have read my french ramblings a few years ago will remember how fond i am of foreign keyboards--not much. so no caps, which is also nothing new for me in general use because i don't cap in posts or in emails, but i do try to observe some semblance of professionalism while blogging (stop laughing).

annnnyyyyywwaaaaaaay. on the flight yesterday--wow, is there more to that story, but will have to wait until i'm rested--i looked up from my seat in the fantabulous business seating and you will never guess who was sitting in front of us. seriously, go ahead and guess. you won't get it. i'll wait.
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jack black. i did a quintuple take and then asked the girl next to me who, as soon as i said, 'jack black' pointed to him. so i wasn't the only one. naturally, i was intrigued ebcause why would jack black be flying business class and not first class and why would be fly out of dulles. so, i had to get up and walk around and look. the full frontal facial view didn't have such a strong resemblence, but i am still reserving final call until i do some research.

then, tonight, we went to see wicked--best musical i've seen in a long, long, long time--and at intermission, i nearly tripped over a guy who looked really familar. cary--are you reading? i swear, it was brad the delt's twin. it was eery. he was with a woman and a child--the woman didn't look anythign like the chick--lisa?--frm college--at least not that my feeble memory can remember, but who knows. it was uber strange and if it wasn't him then he has a twin running around the uk at this very moment.

have had almost no sleep since i got up at 5.30 tuesday morning--it's after 11 wednesday night here, so i am leaving and will try to do a better, less psycho blog tomorrow when i've slept and showered.

Make That Kim In Nashville

Oy.

I've had some adventures in travel--kids with lost passports, running through Newark to make connections with 15 kids, getting stuck in Toronto for two days due to an ice storm, kid stranded in Chicago due to same ice storm, busses having minor wrecks, students getting sick, and then the whole 7/7 thing a couple of years ago, so this latest installment in Travel With Kim is not that extreme, really, but it is irritating and frustrating beyond belief.



Instead of lunching in London this morning, I am breakfasting at the La Quinta Nashville airport eating oatmeal and toast. It's all free (damn good thing) and we'll be leaving today for London around 1.00. We have $25 worth of food vouchers to use at the airport, so we plan to stock up on whatever we can for free. Then we'll attempt to get to Dulles once again.



The problem? Not weather, not mechanical--just flat out ineptitude. Evidently, from what was announced, United had TWO first officers show up for the flight instead of one, which didn't seem like a problem initially, just a delay. Welllllll, then about fifteen minutes later, and when we were supposed to be about to take-off, they announced that the flight was CANCELLED due to a lack of ANY qualified first officer. Seriously. From two to zero, just like that.



At first, I assumed they would just fly us to Dulles on another airline or let us go via another hub, but it soon became obvious that wasn't going to happen. No other flights to D.C. on any airline and precious few to a city where we might get to London at night. So we resigned ourselves to staying another night.



After much working and manuevering, the best ticketing agent ever, Stacy, rebooked us on a flight today to Dulles and then on to London (actually on two flights that arrive twenty minutes apart). Business Class. So I'm not as irate as I might be, provided I do actually get to sit in THIS on my way there:







Sooooooo, we'll see how it goes. Hopefully next time I log on here, it will be from London.

Airport Fun

Why do we have to be at the airport three fricking hours before our flights? Why, why, why. It is the dumbest rule ever. I normally wouldn't get here that early, but since I'm responsible for other people, I figured it was good to follow the rules, however stupid they are. So now I sit here, using the non-free internet in Nashville and drinking a $2.11 bottle of Nestle water. Yes, about 3.5 times more than I would pay at home, but they hold you captive with the new security rules.

It's a total racket.