Great Britain: A quick hop

It was England actually. We did not get to visit Scotland and Wales. In fact it was just London, and the route to London and out of London. We could say, we went to the Country where Greenwich is, the Greenwich of the G.M.T. As this blog goes online at 14 Hrs KL time, G.M.T should be 8 Hrs. Perhaps I'll just say, GOOD MORNING London. And we have "G" today ;) So especially to fellow A-Z Challenge participants, we wish you a very GOOD week ahead as we all start with the letter G.

London is the fifth city after Paris, Antwerp, Belgium and Gent of our almost around the world road trip. It would had been an around the world in six months if we did not take a U-Turn when we reached Los Angeles. Ironically it was cheaper, plane ticket wise to turn back then fly back to Kuala Lumpur from Los Angeles. And interestingly London is the midway between Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles.

For Digi and I, we had a big problem in London. We knew since Belgium that our flight from London-New York had been cancelled. Although I managed to talk to customer service of Expedia to alert our situation, and asked them to call back with solution, nothing came out of it. Instead, we went to British Airline office, at Heathrow Airport Terminal itself, and got our new flight. Now, Expedia is a great online travel agent to get tickets with good prices, but once you are in trouble, and away from your home base, or out the USA, it can be frustrating, and worse get you stranded. Once our flight was settled, and as we had only one full day in London, we took to the street. By bus and on foot.

Just one day in London was too short. This is a fact that I have learned the hard way of our hurried itinerary. I have good knowledge about it about giving us enough time as we do like to take our time when stopping at a place. Yet London and Paris was meant as stopovers, a couple of days and a couple of nights each. But when we were already in a particular place on the other side of the world, to just be swinging by? I truly need to examine my head. Actually cost was the main factor that we had a short stay in these two world cities of Paris & London. Flight cost was so much less in February & early of March compared to later dates. But coming earlier to Europe could also mean getting snowed in. But we could certainly organize a better itinerary, activities and accommodation, in our next trip.

As for hopping around, we paid the price for it. Our new flight from London to New York was at 10 am, which mean we had to be at the airport by 8 am, or leave London Paddington station before 6.30 am, and to wake up at 5.00 am. I woke Digi at 4.30 am, and he dutifully showered. When he came out of the shower he was shaking so badly, so uncontrollably that got us scared. We had no idea what was going on. I got him dressed in his day clothing, and tucked him back to bed. He went back to sleep.

Reluctantly I left him to sleep, and went to the foyer to access the internet. Reluctantly I opened the BA website and checked in online, something I had not planned. That allowed us to have time to just drop our luggage before boarding the plane and thus be at the airport 45 minutes before departure, instead of 2 hours. At 7 am, I woke Digi again, and he woke up relatively much calmer. The receptionist gave us our packed breakfast, one each and we walked to Paddington station to take our train to Heathrow. All went well.

Alternative Foodie.

p/s
London places are so iconic, so for this post I leave the photos as there are, no description.