Finally in London

Thursday, June 13th
Friday, June 14th

London

Cassie:

We are all settled in, after a short walk to a cafe for some tea, breakfast, a little walk, and a 4 hour nap after not having slept for 31 hours. The place we are staying is an apartment in Kensington, a more residential part of London near Kensington palace. Our travel day was quite "interesting"... The flight to Dallas was uneventful, AND THEN we learned that our connection to Frankfurt was delayed by about 3 hours, so we would miss our flight from Frankfurt to London. Thank goodness for Elizabeth, the amazing person who spent over an hour trying to find us a new flight. We gave her a bar of sea salt dark chocolate just as a thanks!

June 13th 2013 Tessa and Cassie on flight from Colorado Springs to Dallas

 Now we were on a plane to London scheduled to arrive five hours earlier. We had great bulkhead seats just past business class which meant: LEGROOM GALORE! The flight was about 8 and a half hours, but I only spent an hour or so asleep. The rest of it I spent watching Les Miserables and The Hobbit on my own little TV! After we got off, we spent the next hour in the customs line, and probably the longest line I have ever been in. After that, we headed to pick up our checked bags, only to learn that they weren't actually there. After who knows how long, we finally traced one of the bags to a different country... The others are probably in the Frankfurt Airport, but we are waiting for a call to see if anyone has located them.
 We will just have to be resourceful with no luggage for at least a day or two. 

                          No luggage!              The line was so horrible we'll                                                                                       .                                                             Only show you this much. 

Susan and Cassie on hold with the airline at London Heathrow Airport

So by 10am London time (2am our bodies time), we were a little tired and dizzy and felt like we just debarked from a long cruise and hadn't lost our sea legs. From Heathrow we took a taxi van to the apartment! It is now about 5:30pm London time and I am currently waiting for Mom and Tessa to wake up so that we can walk to an authentic fish & chips pub!!  I think I have of become a sort of fish & chips connoisseur.

A line of cabs waiting to take us to our apartment! 10 points to whoever can spot the 'Sherlock' cabs :)

 Tomorrow we are leaving at 7 A.M. (12midnight our bodies time) For a 12 hour tour to Stonehenge, the Cotswolds, lunch and shopping in Stratford-upon-Avon, and Bath, England!
 Until then, I am going to try very hard to not let a bad case of jet lag disrupt this beautiful, partly cloudy day here in London! 

Susan
  

After she wrote this, we were using the tube to go to dinner.  When getting off at our stop, Cassie and I watched Tessa, hands pressed against the glass door, ride off to the next stop with out us.  We hadn't made a plan for what to do if we were separated, and I didn't buy a sim card for London, hence we had no cell phones with us. Cassie and I waited at the stop we lost Tessa at, hoping she would come back. I even asked a priest if it was easy for her to get off at the next stop and take a train back. He said yes, but more than 30 minutes passed, and no Tessa. We decided that if she wasn't on the next train coming into the station, that we would go to the next stop to find her. We had been peering intently into every car that went by for half an hour, and didn't see her on the last train.  Just then, I spotted her on the platform, called her name, and we were reunited. We all hugged, and Tessa decided she had had enough and didn't want to continue our adventure of looking for this great fish and chips restaurant.  

Before Tessa got lost, we had a bunch of fun! Susan and Cassie looking cool on the Tube! June 14th 2013, London

Oh yes, an oyster card! And a much needed map. If only we had known...

This is after we were reunited with Tessa. It was a stressful day, but a happy reunion!

We were leaving the tube station, but the stalls you need to pass into and out of, wouldn't let us out! Because we were exiting the same station we entered, not only did we get charged double ($10 each,) but we had to explain to a very nice and helpful employee why we were coming out of the same station we had just entered. We got great middle eastern take out, ate in our very nice apartment, and now after midnight, just set our alarms for a 5am wake up call to get us to our 7am 12 hour tour of England. I have slept less than 3 hours since we left Colorado on June 13th, reminds me of the tired of being the parent of a newborn.  But I am on a magic jack call to find out where our luggage is (I think it is in Germany, but after a 50 minute hold, I spoke to a rep for 1 minute to explain what I needed, she put me on hold, and the call got disconnected.  I am 1 hour and 1 minute into a 1 hour 30 minute wait time to speak to another rep, but I think I will give up and get a few hours sleep. Wait! Someone answered, and 2 of our bags have been in London all day, and not delivered.  The third will be in Frankfurt tomorrow. Luckily between the 3 of us, we have cobbled together what we need.  And there is a washer/dryer in the apartment, thank goodness. I impressed upon the nice lady at American Airlines that we need all of our luggage by tomorrow, we shall see. It is hard to believe this is only our first day here! Now to catch 4 or 5 hours of sleep (there is a nice thunderstorm, lovely, but I hope it stops before our 15 minute walk to our tour bus in the morning) before our big fun day tomorrow!  XOXO