Last Day in the Good 'Ole UK

I believe I forgot to mention yesterday that we went back to our hotel at about 7pm because we were just thrashed. I guess we could have stayed down in London town a lot longer, and soaked in the beauty of her mere presence, but we were dog tired. So, we caught the Tube, caught the train and hoofed it back where we ordered pizza and just lazed around for the rest of the evening. Yes, sawing logs was the order of the evening.

The next day we didn't have to be on the bus until noon, so we all slept in. That is, except for the people who went on to Paris. They had to be up at 4am to catch the bus to catch the train to go to The City of Lights. Me? I'm glad we didn't go. We would have been so tired, it just would not have been worth it. Besides, a lot of them slickity Paris folk went to see "Wicked" last night (a sort of Broadway play), and so were not even in their beds until after midnight. And then up, showered, shaved, packed and downstairs getting on the bus at 4am? No thanky, brotha. Ah'll stay rat cheer.

So, we caught the bus at just a little before noon, rode to Heathrow Airport (this time without all of the convoluted mess we had to go through the first time), and went through security. They hadn't even assigned our flight to a gate yet, so we went to some random gate and sat for about an hour, buying chocolate and trying to find somewhere Jacob could eat (does this sound like it's a familiar theme of this trip?).

When they finally assigned us a gate, we caught the lift (we call it an elevator) and rode the train to our destination. We sat there for about another hour, talked about who knows what and ate some chocolate. I also called Kelly for the last time on the European phone we'd purchased before we left. For the most part it worked like a champ. Then it was finally time to climb on board the plane and sit for 8 hours.

You can see the takeoff from the video at the top. You can see the clouds of England and the Atlantic in the pix to the right and left. We watched movies, read a little bit, slept, and talked. But for the most part we just sat and sat and sat. Man, was my booty ready to get off of that plane.

We saw castles, we saw bog bodies, we ate different food and saw places we'd never seen before. We went to Abbey Road, saw the Book of Kells, walked around the Conwy Castle and rode on double-decker buses. We saw things that were thousands of years old, kissed the Blarney Stone, watched the changing of the guard and rode the London Eye. We saw Shakespeare's birthplace, saw the Tower Bridge, listened to Big Ben chime and went through Westminster Abbey. Every one of those things we REALLY, REALLY cool and I'd do any one of them again in a New York minute.

But the one thing, above all, I'll remember most about this trip is the smile on Kelly's face as we stepped out of the door and back into American air. I was so happy to see that smile again. It melted my heart.

I really missed her.

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Coming soon - Leftovers, or What's For Dinner?