April 10, 2019
I have been flying now for about 3 hours in a 10 hour flight. It has all gone pretty well. Yesterday was interesting in that my plan to cheaply stay out by Heathrow in a cheaper AIRBNB (versus downtown in an expensive hotel) kind of back.fired on us. As it turned out, the cost to get from Heathrow, Terminal 4, was 28 pounds. I thought it would be only 10 or 12 pounds. Huge difference. The funny thing tough, going back to the Terminal from our apartment to go back into London only cost 10 pounds. So I guess coming off the airport costs much more than going to the airport and I believe that Terminal 4 was further from our flat than Terminal 5 was.
We arrived at the flat around 2 PMsh. It was really nice. Very clean with two very small bedrooms. It was raining a bit when we arrived and the flat was quite cool, so we had to figure out how to get the heat on. Those type of things are always a challenge to me. But in the end, Kim and I figured it all out and got some heat going. We kind of just relaxed until about 4 PM or so and then we headed back to Heathrow to catch the Piccadilly Line again only we got off at Piccadilly Circus. both Ilene and Denise wanted to shop a bit and we were all quite hungry. The ride back in was.a good 50 minutes....kind of long.
The first order of business was to locate the Queens Theater that houses the production of Les Miserables. It did not take long to get a visual on it. The West End of London has tons of theaters. And Piccadilly Circus kind of felt like Times Square in NY...but not quite as big.. Once we had the visual on the theater, food was the next order of business. We saw a small tavern (St. James Tavern) and thought that it would be nice to do pub food one more time. So in we went. It was pretty crowded. But one of the Bar Tenders waved us in and took us into a closet like area where a table for 4 was set. It had a reserved sign on it but he smiled and said it was reserved for us. :-) It was a nice meal in a secluded place in a very busy Tavern.
After eating, Ilene really wanted to find a light coat to take back. We walked around a bit as we had an hour before the play was to start. We went into some ‘outdoors’ like store and there she found a very nice coat that seemed to be goodly priced. So she bought it. We all thought it looked very nice on her.
After the grand purchase, we headed towards the theater but looking for some souvenir stores. We came upon a little market that had some trinkets. Denise wanted some salt and pepper shakers from London. And Ilene did too. This little store actually had some...for 4.99 pounds per set. Both Ilene and Denise bought a set of different types and plan to swap one piece from each to get 1 piece from each set. So genius that’s are. :-) That, my friends, was the last purchase as far as I know of things to take home.
Now the play....Les Miserables. I think my nose is still bleeding from being high up. The theater was actually quite small and the view downward was really steep. I think we saw the tops of the actors heads. Funny, Cossette as it turns out, was actually African American. We had no idea until after the play that this was the case. Although we paid a pretty good price for our tickets, the Playbills still had to be purchased....4 pounds. We passed on that. now the good parts. Oh my gosh, what a nice production of Les Miserables. The scenery was amazing with a circulating stage. The men playing Jean Valjean and Javert had voices like no others. Boy could they sing. And when ‘Bring Him Home’ was sung, it kind of brought tears to my eyes. So pretty.. The women’s voices were great too. But I think the men were better this time around. It was an amazing 3 hours of theater.
After the play, it was decision time to either hail an Uber or take the Piccadilly line back to Heathrow and hail an Uber from there. In the end, we chose to pay a bit more and to get home more quickly. It probably would have cost us around 40 pounds using the subway and Uber. We paid 55 pounds to be driven to our flat. The good news was that we were there in roughly 40 minutes. We arrived around 11:30 PM. I don’t think we would have been back until 12:30 AM or later if we had taken the subway.
Upon arriving, we all quickly packed what we could for our travels the next morning. I think I was asleep by 12_30 ish...maybe sooner. But I was wide awake around 4:30 AM. I finally got up and showered around 5:15 AM. At about 6:15 AM, we hailed our last Uber to take us to Terminal 3 where American Airlines flys out of. The process of getting through security went fairly well. Kim, again, got strip searched. Well, not quite that bad. He makes close friends at every airport he goes through because of his medical devices and so on. One funny thing was when Kim tried to use his boarding pass (electronic) going through the turnstil prior to security. Ilene, Denise and I had already gone through but Kim’s would not take. Come to find out later, Ilene had gone through using Kim’s bar code and the system knew it had been used. The lady figured it out and let him by. We all gave Ilene a ration of jokes about that. After clearing security, we headed to the lounge that our credit cards allow. Once in, we had a really nice breakfast and just relaxed until it was time to go too the gate. At the gate, I wanted to see if Denise and I could be sat together. The Gate Agent was really nice and said the best that she could do was put me in the middle aisle close to where Denise was to sit. I then thought I could ask the person sitting next to her if we could trade, which I eventually did. But ... she first said no. She did not want to sit next to the man who was sitting next to me. In the end, she found another seat and moved to it. So Denise and I are sitting together on this 10 hour flight to Phoenix.
At Phoenix, we went to board our flight and the Gate Agent had Denise put her bag in the bag sizer. I was amazed. We’ve traveled all over the world and her bag has never been checked. Well, her bag fit in just fine, yet the agent still forced her to check it. Everyone around us was amazed. I was ticked. So many bags had gone on that were much bigger than Denise’s. Yet they singled her out. Pretty odd. I found some of the actions by American Airline employees a bit odd.
At Phoenix, we went to board our flight and the Gate Agent had Denise put her bag in the bag sizer. I was amazed. We’ve traveled all over the world and her bag has never been checked. Well, her bag fit in just fine, yet the agent still forced her to check it. Everyone around us was amazed. I was ticked. So many bags had gone on that were much bigger than Denise’s. Yet they singled her out. Pretty odd. I found some of the actions by American Airline employees a bit odd.
Our trip has concluded. We really miss our family and home. But it is always fun to go to other parts of this beautiful world and feel of the different customs and such there. We are all just doing our best living our lives where ever we have been placed. And in general, the majority of the people are kind and helping as they just live their lives.
England(London), Germany (Berlin, Bremen), Netherlands(Muiden, Amsterdam), Belgium(Brussels, Ghent, Bruges) and for a quick moment, France(Dunkirk). We flew planes, we took multitudes of trains including one that went under the English Channel. We took water boat tours, did the London Eye, road bikes through tulip fields and Holland villages. We experienced WWII via Berlin and other places. We saw amazing architecture both very old and very new. We saw old Cathedrals, Forts and very old Castles. We saw the ocean (Dover and Dunkirk). And, we found Doner’s...a crazy good sandwich in Germany1. I’m sure I left out much. But I will not leave out the best memory of all, that we were able to travel VERY well with our very dear friends, Kim and Ilene. They were awesome and so fun to be with. I hope that they might want to do it again with us someday! So until then....another trip in the books.
Pictures....
To power your devices, you had to pedal a bike. Ilene and Denise was all over it in the train station.
Tim and Kim chillin at the London Flat near Heathrow.
Kim signing for Ilene’s new coat.
Good fiends.
London telephone booth.
Our seats at the Queen Theater to watch Les Miserables.
Street off of Piccadilly Circus.
Doubldecker buses everywhere.
Denise’s final dinner in a pub...Fish, Chips and Peas.
The Les Miserables stage.
Our final bedroom in London. Small room but nice and clean.
St. James Tavern where we ate our final dinner in London.
Cool graffiti in the London Tube.
Dinnner picture in our closet area in the Pub.
Queens Theater behind us.
The new coat. It looks really nice!
The theater group.
This was in the cement outside the theater.
Waiting to fly.
The Piccadilly line in the London Tube.
My last dinner (chicken smothered in bbq sauce and cheese). Pretty good!
On our airplane to come home.
Denise riding the bike to charge her devices.
One of the streets off Piccadilly Circus.
Street performers at Piccadilly Circus.
