When we went through security here at home, Rynie was an incredible little helper. He helped to make sure Pink Princess was happy, her toys didn't get lost, and that our luggage was always in sight. I brought him some dry erase mats to doodle on and he loved it! We met Catherine at our gate, and it was nice to have another adult with us. Flying to JFK, we sat next to a Ukrainian woman who was originally from Kazakhstan. She was very interesting to sit by and fun to talk to, even if we didn't always know what the other person was talking about. The only downside was she made herself some sort of goulash/cake/something and it smelled like roasted dog. Blech. Other than that, it was great. She told me about her first grandbaby that she had gone to visit, was incredible with Pink Princess taking over her handbag and wearing it for over an hour, and Rynie asking her odd questions. When we got to JKF we ended up circling the airport for about 45 minutes waiting to land because they were backed up. They ended up landing us out in the boondocks and having this massive people mover help us disembark and get to the gate. We got to the British Airways terminal with minimal issues and got everything checked in there. Lindsay was extremely sweet to hold a mostly passed out Pink Princess while I was *thoroughly* frisked by security and Catherine took Rynie through. It was so nice to have help!
Once we got to our gate, Rynie and Pink Princess decided it was time to make friends with everyone. We had to do about fifteen zillion (okay really only 4) trips to the bathroom to get everyone taken care of but by the time I came back with Pink Princess the second time, Rynie had made a new friend in John. He is the son of Matt and Jennie who put our tour together. They were having fun chatting and looking at the planes getting fueled up. Pink Princess on the other hand, decided she could toddle between all the girls and get to know them! She had hardly been walking and was off mixing with all the big girls. She was making friends with my friend Lindsay, when she spotted Matt and he smiled at her. That was the beginning of a very fast friendship. She toddled over to him, pulled herself up on his lap, made herself at home, and smirked at anyone who would look at her. She knew she was cute.
When we were able to board, Matt and John were very nice and helped us get everything situated and put where it needed to be. On this flight, we sat next to a nice young man from Turkey who Pink Princess was enamored by. He was very kind and tolerant of two little kids. Rynie fell asleep during dinner so Pink Princess had no qualms about helping herself to Rynie's and my dinner. Rynie didn't wake up until the Flight Attendant came to check that he was seat belted in for landing! Pink Princess had a little bit of a harder time falling asleep. She is so long that she was sprawling all over the place.
We got through customs, got our luggage, then we went and found Bumpa and Floolie!!! The kids were so excited to see them. I am not really sure that Rynie knew they had another flight ahead of them, but they were great on that flight too! Pink Princess did have an accident all over herself, but they survived just fine.
We met up with the rest of our tour group at Heathrow and then boarded our private coach, not bus! ;) and went on a couple hour tour of London to get our bearings.
We went past many famous buildings, unfortunately, I really am horrendous at taking pictures from a moving vehicle, so they were too blurry to make out. I'm hoping to get some good ones from Catherine a little later in the week, so those will be added in with everything else at a later date. I do have to confess, even though Nigel our tour guide was a great guide, I was so tired I did have to catch 20 winks on the coach. No worries though, I caught Catherine getting 20 winks too! ;)
The Prince Albert Memorial in Hyde Park. Queen Victoria erected this when Prince Albert died.
This was for Honey and anyone else who plays the Organ.
Buckingham Palace. The Queen was not in residence that day. You can tell because the Union Jack was flying instead of her personal standard.
Anyone recognize this? I can't remember what building it was, but it's neat to look at! We also went past the building they used for Gringott's Bank in the Harry Potter movies. Link here.
We went and checked into our hotel. Catherine and I had a sweet room! Although there was this little problem with it. We couldn't figure out how to turn on our lights!!! And there was this odd little box on the wall that had a little light in it. When we went down to the lobby, we asked the front desk how to turn on the lights, and they asked if we inserted our room key into the little lit up box! Presto! Lights worked from that point on!
We went and wandered around London a bit, then went to the Tower or London and toured that! It was incredible!!!! We got to see tons of rooms, the ravens were there. It is so amazing to walk through the places that I've read about. To experience the history and know that amazing things, both good and bad have happened there.
We'd just got back to our hotel, then we needed to take one of the girls to meet up with a few others in our group to the London Eye so she could do that. We turned around to go back to the Tube station to head towards our hotel and dinner when we found out in the Station that the District and Circle Lines were closed for the evening because someone fell on the tracks! We looked at a map, figured we could hit our stop from the Picadilly Line and proceeded from there. Well, the train slowed down at Gloucester Road, but it didn't stop. We got off on the Earl's Court Road Tube stop and decided since there were some different Ethnic restaurants to get dinner. We found a relatively clean looking Indian restaurant and went in and ordered. A little while into dinner, Cassie turned deathly pale and covered her plate with her napkin and was done. I asked her if she was alright, and she said she was fine. A few minutes later she was still pale so I asked again. She removed her napkin and showed me a massively huge cockroach in her food!!! Needless to say, we were all done quickly, paid and left.
We tried to find our way back from around Earl's Court Road and asked direction from a shopkeeper. We quickly realized that the shopkeeper had sent us in the wrong direction! We wandered the streets a little bit and eventually figured out how to get back to the hotel! Our little group was proud of ourselves for navigating the streets on our first night in London!
