London Day 1 and 2

Saturday, March 21/Sunday March 22, 2009
Off to London – the flight from Grand Rapids to Chicago was quick and easy. Flight time of 29 minutes. Had to gate check my bag because it wouldn’t fit in the smaller overhead bin. Almost didn’t get it back at the end, everyone else got theirs then the attendant said that was all. I said uh-uh, my bag should still be there. They had left it on the ground and the handlers had started walking away. After that came a six hour layover in O’Hare airport. I spent the first part of the time by walking from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 to find a virtual geocache. That was a nice walk but would have been nicer without the heavy suitcase. Yep, Steve, I kinda wish now that I’d tried to take the wheels. But it was my call. (I have a convertible carry on, looks like a suitcase but has backpack straps.)

After the cache, I watched part of a movie on my netbook until Debbie’s flight came in. We sat for quite a while at a food court and caught up on each other’s life and compared notes on the trip ahead. We had about four hours then got on the 777 bound for London. We both had window seats, Deb one row ahead. A gentleman from Ireland was seated next to me, very nice chap. Plane was nice, it had individual in seat entertainment. We could choose movies, music, or games to play. There was also trip information such as a map and statistics on how many more miles, etc. I watched parts of Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Slumdog Millionaire. We were served dinner not too long after we took off, then breakfast not too long before landing. I am operating on a severe sleep deficit right now, not sure I slept more than 5-10 minutes at a time before that. I’m sure I will sleep good tonight, I was falling asleep on the underground on our way back tonight.
We got to London and needed to meet up with Judy. I had written down she was coming in at Terminal 3 but for some reason thought that it would be terminal 2. See what sleep deprivation does for you! We went all the way to terminal 2, but none of the airlines there were Delta. Oops, look at the paper. Oh, I wrote down 3. So off we go, but stopped along the way and found out she had actually come in at terminal 4 and had come in earlier than us rather than later. So off we go to terminal 4, which involved a trip on the shuttle. She wasn’t there. We talked to the company that was giving us a shuttle ride to the hotel, she hadn’t checked in either in 4 or 3. So we decided to go back to 3, and were thankful to finally catch up with her at last.
Our shuttle driver was an interesting chap, gave us some commentary along the way, and took us through some congested traffic that we weren’t sure we would make it through, especially near the hotel. We settled into the hotel – not the most modern but it’ll do for a few nights anyway. It does have shower and toilet in the room , not all do.
Went toward Paddington Station, stopped at a nearby McDonalds to use the wi-fi to let family know we had arrived safely. Then on to the station, we rode the tube down to Westminster station. We walked out of the station to a glorious sight – Big Ben and Parliament. Awesome. Brought tears to my eyes, I am finally here…We walked across Westminster Bridge and on to the London Eye. We timed it just right as we started up in the daylight and it was sunset and lights were turning on by the time we were done. Tried to do a few caches along the way and found one of them.
Walked back to the station, ended up catching the Circle line the wrong way so we had a longer ride but still got back to Paddington Station. We decided to have dinner at Sawyer Arms, a traditional English restaurant. I had fish and chips and mashed peas, Judy had Scottish salmon, and Deb had a English beef burger. Walked back to the hotel and here we are. A wonderful first day in London (except for