Our 6 week
voyage began with a flight to London, where we stayed for few days before
heading to SA. There are a couple
of reasons for this: 1) the flight to South Africa from the States is a
RIDICULOUSLY long flight and neither one of us looked forward to having both
flights to and from SA be this crazy long, 2)I’ve never been to London and we
thought it would be cool to check out the city for a couple of days, and 3) our
very awesome friends Steph and Todd live in Zurich, and we all agreed it would
rock our worlds if we were able to meet up in Europe for a few days since we
were technically flying OVER Europe to get to SA anyway…so of course!!
So, we began
our journey in London. After a
not-so-awesome Virgin Atlantic Airlines experience-the staff were more bitter
than an AA employee (and THAT’S saying something!), the food made me (and a few
others, it would seem, as dictated by the line to the toilet) ill in mid-air,
and the plane itself was pretty old and not so comfortable in the seat or in
viewing tv for poor Matt who couldn’t sleep. Not to mention the crew were very bossy about their specific
time of night/day when the window shade was REQUIRED to be closed/open (um,
excuse me, I don’t want to
open the window. I’m not ready to greet the day!)
Anyway, the
flight didn’t last too long…and soon we found ourselves in customs in Heathrow
(Wow, how amazingly charmingly nice the British customs agents are! The rest of the world could learn a few things from them!!),
and after we learned that my bag did not seem to make it to the cart that was
to go to “baggage claim”, that it instead made it to the cart that was to go to
“transport”, and would get to my hotel later in the afternoon, we made our way
toward the tube to head into the city.
Now, most of
you may be aware of how, um, sleepy I tend to get after about 2 hours of being awake. And some of you may be aware of how my
jet lag in Europe tends to make me walk around in a confused,
feel-like-I’ve-been-forced-awake-after-taking-a-sleeping-pill kind of feeling. So I came into London prepared,
mentally. I was going to feel
weird, I knew I would, and by golly, I was GOING to MAKE it until late
afternoon if it killed me!
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| My first ride in the London Tube!! |
As it turns
out, I felt surprisingly okay standing in line in customs. Perhaps eating icky food that makes you
spend more time in a toilet than a cozy plane seat gives you a sense of
revival, or perhaps it was because I was in a new place, or perhaps, maybe,
just maybe, part of
the reason I felt so exhausted the last time I flew to Europe I had just gotten
married and well, that’ll leave you feeling exhausted for a year! But the urge to fight the sleep only
came about when we had time to sit-during the hour transfer to the city via the
tube. Once we got to the hotel, we
dropped our bags off and immediately headed out to walk and get some air. And proceeded to walk the entire
circumference of both Kensington and Hyde Parks.
So now, we’re
dealing with sore legs, sore hips, sore feet and sleepy eyes. BUT, we did manage to stay awake. And take in the absolutely gorgeous day
London provided. And our best part
of the day? Meeting up with our
great friend Stu from the BVI, who happened to be in London renewing his
passport. He took us around
Whitehall, a busy metropolitan part of London, where you can find 10 Downing
Street (where the Prime Minister lives), access to Scotland Yard (where the
police station is), Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey (where people
make laws and royal celebrities get married, so I’m told), and the Clarence Pub
(where Stu got kicked out when he was 21). So lots of history!
After taking in the sights on Whitehall, we ventured over to Picadilly
Circus, and what a fitting name for this area: crazy crazy CRAZY area filled
with tourists and touristy sights like Ripley’s Believe It or Not and Hard Rock
Restaurant and so on. However, we
did find a pub and have one more tasty pint before sending Stu on his way to
the airport to head back to the BVI, while Matt and I made our way back to the
hotel to discover that (hallelujah!)my bag was waiting for me with a big smile on its face (okay, now I’d
say the jet lag is kicking in!!).
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| Hanging with Stu in a pub in Picadilly Circus! |
After a shower
to wash off the not-so-fantastic flight, we crawled into our wood-hard
twin-sized beds and promptly fell asleep for 15 hours.
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