Our first family overseas trip! Thanksgiving week - we met Lisa and Jason, and Pam and Ted, who arrived in London the day before us. The boys had the week off from school. We left on the Friday before Thanksgiving (the boys missed one day of school) and arrived back in Wichita the Friday after Thanksgiving.
November 17-November 18
Friday, November 17
Left the house at 4:15 a.m. to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Chicago.
Waiting at the Wichita airport. It's early.
Chicago flight.
We arrived in Chicago at 7:45 am. Must. Have. Coffee.
Zach sees the sign for water fountain and asks “is that a sign to show where to go to throw up?” 😂
Our flight to Heathrow leaves at 9:25 a.m. First things first...plug in electronics!
Lots of enterainment with movies, TV shows, and games the screen in front of each seat. There’s even a way to "seat chat" and an interactive map with flight information. At one point the outside temperature was -79 degrees! The flight was about eight hours.
The boys watch movies (Harry Potter, The Martian, Pacific Rim, The Dark Knight Rises, etc). I watch the movies Dodgeball and 127 Hours, 1 episode of Veep and five episodes of The Office. Scott plays golf, poker and watched movies.
We are served breakfast and a snack. Free drinks, including booze!
And then there's a crisis! I put my cup of water on Adam’s tray table while I go to the bathroom. It spills. In his lap. On his phone. And then his phone won’t work. Uh oh.
We arrive in London at 10:40 p.m. London time (4:40 p.m. Wichita time). At the airport, we call Pam and Ted to tell them we arrived. We called the wrong “Ted Hayes” twice. I had forgotten about another Ted Hayes I know, and we just called the first "Ted Hayes" from my contacts.
It takes about an hour on the tube (the Underground). Near the airport, no one was on the tube.
It gets a little more crowded closer to the city. We got off on the Waterloo stop and it’s super crowded. It’s 11:30 p.m. on Friday night and the crowds are in full swing.
We walk to our hotel. It’s after midnight when we get there. Here's where we stayed:
Saturday, November 18
We sleep until 12:30 p.m.
We eat breakfast/lunch, then over the Thames River by the Parliament and Big Ben (which was under construction), the London Eye, Westminster Abbey and stop at a little Pub for drinks, snacks and bathrooms.
Bridge over the Thames River...Parliament in the the background
Scott and Lisa.
Outside Westminster Abbey. We didn't go in, but do later in the trip.
Pub for snacks and drinks. Everything is decorated for Christmas, which is fun!
It got dark about 4:30 p.m., which made it feel much later than it really is! We walk to Harrods and eat dinner there. There’s a lot of people there.
We eat at Harrods, then back to the hotel for a nightcap in Lisa and Jason’s room.
