Adam (and a friend I made at the airport) mocked me a little for taking a picture of our airplane. But wanted to have an official picture of the start of our journey. And I do. After a 45 minute take off delay to replace something in the air conditioning system and a 9 hour plane ride in row 36 of the 777 below, we made it to London. We made it with all 8 (4 carry on & 4 checked) pieces of luggage also. Thanks American Airlines for not making this more difficult!
I also had to sneak in a picture of Adam at the airport. I almost got the cheesy smile with the eye roll – you know the one? Where he can’t believe that you’re embarrassing him by taking a picture in the airport. Yeah, that’s the one he gave me.
I slept on the plane, despite what Adam tells me was rough turbulence and three small children crying/screaming in round. Adam, due the previously mentioned reasons, did not. Therefore when we arrived in London around 11am local time (5am Texas Time—unless you're one of our many blog readers in El Paso, then you have to do your own time zone conversion) I was slightly refreshed and Adam was not. We cleared customs with no problems. I knew we were going to be alright when the immigration officer saw we would be here two years and jokingly asked if we were sure we wanted to do that. I'm sure it was a comment of British pride. After a smile and assurance to the officer that we really wanted to live here for two years, she stamped us through.
We found the Heathrow Express train on only the second attempt (I'd like to point out, mostly for my father, that there were four alternatives, so we did figure it out before we exhausted all the options). From the Heathrow Express, we took the train to Bristol. Adam & I had to take turns walking the length of the train to keep ourselves awake during the 1:45 it took to get from London to Bristol. Many times one of us would return to our seats only to find the other nodding off. We'd never make good watch dogs.
Somehow, getting off the train, finding a taxi, going to the apartment, getting out of the taxi and getting all the luggage up the stairs of the apartment gave us a second wind. We are on the 3rd floor of the apartment complex, however as typical European multilevel buildings, there is a ground floor and then they number. So, by American standards, we are on the 4th floor. Just think of that when you envision us carrying 200lbs of stuff. We showered and cleaned up a bit. I could write an entire page about the adventure in showering. You must first turn on the water heater, then wait 45 minutes for it to heat up (but if you wait an hour & the system doesn't sense any water use, the heater turns off again). Once you have hot water, the shower spurts in so many different directions that the quazi-half wall around the tub can't contain all the water thus soaking much of the bathroom floor (and front hall, if you happen to leave the bathroom door open…I wondered why the wood floor was warped when we first walked in, mystery solved).
We had dinner at a pub (Adam had the burger – anyone surprised?) then forced ourselves to stay awake until 8:30 so we could try to get on a normal-ish sleep schedule. Adam has more about our adventure around town today and the hills that nobody told us were in Bristol. All I'm saying is I'm going to have great calves by the time we come back to the US!
We found the Heathrow Express train on only the second attempt (I'd like to point out, mostly for my father, that there were four alternatives, so we did figure it out before we exhausted all the options). From the Heathrow Express, we took the train to Bristol. Adam & I had to take turns walking the length of the train to keep ourselves awake during the 1:45 it took to get from London to Bristol. Many times one of us would return to our seats only to find the other nodding off. We'd never make good watch dogs.
Somehow, getting off the train, finding a taxi, going to the apartment, getting out of the taxi and getting all the luggage up the stairs of the apartment gave us a second wind. We are on the 3rd floor of the apartment complex, however as typical European multilevel buildings, there is a ground floor and then they number. So, by American standards, we are on the 4th floor. Just think of that when you envision us carrying 200lbs of stuff. We showered and cleaned up a bit. I could write an entire page about the adventure in showering. You must first turn on the water heater, then wait 45 minutes for it to heat up (but if you wait an hour & the system doesn't sense any water use, the heater turns off again). Once you have hot water, the shower spurts in so many different directions that the quazi-half wall around the tub can't contain all the water thus soaking much of the bathroom floor (and front hall, if you happen to leave the bathroom door open…I wondered why the wood floor was warped when we first walked in, mystery solved).
We had dinner at a pub (Adam had the burger – anyone surprised?) then forced ourselves to stay awake until 8:30 so we could try to get on a normal-ish sleep schedule. Adam has more about our adventure around town today and the hills that nobody told us were in Bristol. All I'm saying is I'm going to have great calves by the time we come back to the US!
I must admit that even the 4 flight of stairs and semi-working shower sounds romantically British, can't wait for our trip across the pone!
ReplyDelete