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Postlogue - 24 December

Home safe and sound with lots of good memories and photos to edit and post.

I will be updated the entries in this blog with a "photo of the day" and will also post a link to the photo album of all my photos once I do a quick edit.

I hope that you enjoyed my travelogue of this trip!

Note (Dec 25) - our luggage finally made it to us about 9:00p on Christmas Day (Night). Again, I was complaining too much as I felt we were fortunate to make the Chicago connection we had.

Day 14, 23 December - London and Home!

Chelsea, waiting to board our flight back to the States.

I woke up pretty easily ahead of the alarm clock this morning and went for a short walk while Chelsea showered and finished getting ready. The area where we stayed is really a good area for tourists and I found other ameneties (Starbucks, etc.) within a couple of blocks of the train station.

We got everything packed up and headed to the Tube station at 8:00a.  It was pretty quiet during my walk around 7:30a, but now 30 minutes later it was busier with the business rush! We had spotted the lifts (elevators) in the Tube entrance that would let us by-pass having to navigate the stairs with our luggage and we didn't have to wait too long.

The Picadilly Tube line was a different story...  the cars were jammed packed, but we managed to squeeze in with our luggage. I just put my luggage against the pole in the center of the car and hung on there knowing that which either side door opened, I'd be mostly "out of the way". The crowd thinned out as we made our way closer to Heathrow, but it took a bit longer than normal and we arrived at Heathrow terminal at about 9:30a! 

I could really tell that Chelsea was having mixed feelings about going home - she seems to really enjoy the European way of life and I was sad that our travels together were coming to an end.

We made it thru the check-in process fine, it was just slow with the luggage drop-off being the slowest part of the process. Security was a breeze as we didn't have to take laptops out of their cases nor take our shoes off.

We got some coffee and a snack and I tried to stay on my feet as much as possible knowing that I had 9 plus hours in a plane to Chicago. We boarded the 767 and, much to our surprise, we ended up with an empty seat next to us so we had a bit more room to stretch out. The flight went ok, and I caught up on some blog entries, watched 3 movies, and napped a bit. The pilot had warned us that Chicago was having some weather issues, but that we were in good shape with plenty of extra fuel in case we got into a holding pattern trying to land at O'Hare. But, fortunately again, we were only about 20 minutes late landing and made it through customs without any issues.

Once we got to the domestic flight terminal it was a totally different story!!!  Chicago was getting snow again and the gates were packed with people waiting on delayed flights or hoping for stand-by seats.  Our flight was showing delayed until 8:45p so we tried to find a place to "hunker down". I had intentionally purchased United air tickets so that I would be on the same flight as Chelsea so that if there were delays we would be together. Nothing would suck more than being stuck in an airport on Christmas Eve by yourself.

Tensions were running high as many flights were being cancelled and travelers were having to play the "stand by" game.  After a while, I went for a walk and to get some food. I was walking back with an order of McDonald's fries when Chelsea came running down the hall. They had bumped up our flight departure to 7:00p and she was afraid that I wasn't going to get back in time.  We were some of the fortunate few - our flight's plane had made it into O'Hare and would be making the flight to Nashville!!!

We finally boarded about 7:20p and about 7 lucky people from the list of nearly 50 stand-by passengers made it on as well. The pilot told us it was going to be a bit of a wait while our fuel was topped off and the plane de-iced.  Finally, about 8:30p, we pushed back from the gate and got into the taxi and take-off pattern. After nearly an hour of taxiing, the pilot came back on and said the precipitation had changed and that we had been taxiing too long and that we would be returning to the gate for more fuel and another de-icing! Of course, people were moaning and complaining, but I was just happy to be on board a flight that seemed like it was going to make it out that night. I envisioned having to stay in O'Hare for a day or two if our flight got cancelled.

Finally, around 10:30p we made it back to the take off pattern and got under way! The flight to Nashville arrived at 11:58p - we were indeed some of the lucky ones!  Of course, our luggage hadn't made it with us so we had to fill out the missing luggage forms and were told it might be Christmas day before we get our luggage. I had no issue with the luggage - at least we would be at home and with family for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Chelsea had a couple of friends that met her at the airport so we stayed up late talking and visiting when we got home.

It has been a great trip and one that I won't forget!  Especially to get to spend so much time with Chelsea and do some great things together!

In the words of a friend, Keith Misegades, "I am a lucky man!"

Happy Holidays to all and may 2009 bring you good fortune!

Day 13, 22 December - London

This site, on south bank of Thames river, has been the site of a pub for more than 400 years!

We had spent some time looking over the brochures about what we wanted to see on our last day in London and decided to buy a one-day London Pass. The pass has free admission to a lot of different places along with discounts on transport and dining. It seemed to be a good bargain if you are going to hit up several attractions in a short period of time.

Before I get to what we did on our "one day tourist blitz" of London, let me tell you about the Oyster Card.  This is a card used on the London Underground. The card itself costs 3 GBP, but then you "top off" with money at any ticket machine in an Underground station. The beauty of the card is that you will never pay more for a day's worth of travel than the "one day, unlimited travel" pass. So you don't have to worry about trying to work out travel logistics for saving money! Also, the fares for single trips are discounted if you use your card! Another highly recommended item if spending anytime in London.

We made our way to the British Tourism office to purchase our London Passes. After getting the passes, Chelsea wanted to go tour the Tower of London (a free option with the pass) so we made our way to Tower Hill. Even though I had been to the tower on numerous occassions since 1973, I learned (or re-learned) many historical facts surrounding the Tower. One of which was the fact that Sir Walter Raliegh had been imprisoned at the tower on numerous occassions including a 10 year stretch during which his son was born at the Tower. I was also impressed with some of the grafitti carving in the "prison" tower that was done by prisoners.

After the Tower, we got on board one of the City Cruise boats that travels along the Thames (a hop-on hop-off ticket is free with the pass) and rode down to the Westminister area. The boat hand that gave an impromptou tour narrative during the trip was very entertaining and I enjoyed seeing someone that really enjoyed their job. 

We toured the Churchill Museum and War Cabinet Rooms near the Houses of Parliment. This was another "freebie" with the London Pass and was very intruiging to see the actual rooms and furnishings that Churchill and his staff used during the Battle of Britian and other strategic times during World War II.

After the War Rooms we walked along the edge of King James' Park and headed to Trafalger Square to grab a quick snack - a sandwich from Pret A Manger. It's nice to see "fast food" chains that produce healthy and environmentally conscious food. Too bad the American fast food chains couldn't take the hint! We ate our food sitting at the base of Nelson's monument in Trafalger Square and commented on the high number of foreign tourists are in London.  It was fun to watch all the kids try to climb onto the lions that guard Nelson's monument.

Also, on the London Pass was admission to any special exhibits at the National Portrait Gallery. While the National Portrait Gallery has free admission, they had a special exhibit of Annie Leibowitz work from her new book. We decided to take a quick turn through the exihibit, while we were in the neighborhood!

We had a bit more souvenier shopping to take care of so we headed towards Harrods Department store. To say the store was "crazy" with holiday shoppers would be an understatment, but we hung in there. Chelsea is no longer the timid, hang back person in crowds! Some cheaper momentos were also in order so we took the Tube to Picadilly Circus looking for the tourist souvenier stores. Picadilly was also a swarm of shoppers and tourists and there was another Christmas Fayre (amusement rides) taking place in Picadilly. We also lucked into finding a luggage store that was going out of business and I bought a cheap duffle bag to "offload" some of Chelsea's luggage so we hopefully wouldn't be hit with excess bag fees when we check into our flights tomorrow.

With our shopping goals accomplished we decided to take advantage of the Wagamama 2-for-1 deal with the London Pass. There was a Wagamama that honored the discount back near the Tower of London so we took the Tube and walked a few blocks looking for the restaurant. By this time (7:00p) the area was void of tourists and we thought what good luck... we're in for a quick meal. Unfortunately the restaurant was severely under staffed and we ended up waiting longer for our food here than at any other time during the trip. However, we did indeed get the 2-for-1 deal so it kind of made up for the poor service.

By this time it was 8:30p and we had been on the go nearly 12 hours - and since it gets dark so early, 8:30p feels well past midnight! We had planned to see a film at Chelsea Cinemas (another free feature of London Pass), but we were both pretty tired and decided to head back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, we re-packed and caught up on email. Tomorrow is an early morning as we will catch the Tube for Heathrow around 8:00a and hope that the business rush hour is a bit less since it is only 2 days 'til Christmas!

Day 12, 21 December - London

Christmas tree, an annual gift from Norway, stands in Trafalgar Square, London.

Wow, a whole day (well two, actually) without having to worry about getting to another place! I enjoy our time when we are in one place with time to "explore" rather than having to rush and worry about getting to the next destination.

The weather was definitely milder in London... we slept with the window open last night! Our room faced the street on the 2nd floor (actully 3rd floor by American standards) and our hotel heating seemed to work fine (even with the room radiator turned off). I actually enjoyed hearing the street noise during the night and early morning.

We took our time getting going this morning. Chelsea is enjoying being out of the school routine and, quite frankly, I have not thought much about work! We didn't have much internet access over the past 4 days and I liked being "disconnected"!

We dicussed what we wanted to do/see today and decided to take advantage of the good theater availability. I had read a magazine write-up (my same source for "Lost and Found Orchestra") about "Potted Potter", a 2-man parody of the Harry Potter novels. We found reasonable tickets, again on lastminute.com, for an afternoon show at Trafalger Studios.

We headed to Camden Town markets. This was one of the markets that was listed as open on Sunday morning and was just a short tube ride away from our hotel. Camden markets to turned out to be a treat for the photographer's eye!  First off, it has lots of shops and stalls that cater to punk and gothic fashions. It also sports a big international food market with lots of stalls offering all different kinds of ethnic fast food! I bought a couple of nice photos in a photography shop and a couple of small presents for Jamie and James (back home).

After the market Chelsea wanted to stop in the British Library (also very near our hotel). The exhibits are free and include some amazing documents! One of the four original copies of the Magna Carta, some of Shakespeare's original works, and notebooks from Leonardo Da Vinci! I could tell that Chelsea could spend days in the Library, but we had to be at the theater at 3:30p. 

"Potted Potter" was hilarious and we enjoyed the show very much. The theater only seated about 40 people, so it was an "up close and personal" show. After the show, with darkness pretty well set in, I did a few quick photos from the steps of the British Gallery before being told that tripods weren't allowed in that area. We made our way down to the Thames as I was hoping for some good photo ops with the buildings on the South Bank being lit in different colors for the holidays. We walked down to the Big Ben area taking a few photos and the nice light in the sky was from the building lights being reflected on the low clouds.

We had dinner at Bella Italia (again) near Oxford Circus then made our way back to the hotel to catch the football (soccer) highlights on the TV. 

One more full day in London before we head back home...

Day 11, 20 December - London

Ceiling detail in the Great Hall at Harlaxton College.

We said good bye to the Earl Howe and found the Enterprise car rental. It was another grey, dreary day, but it seemed the rain had moved on. After turning the car in, the Enterprise folks gave us a ride to the train station. Thank you, Enterprise!

We had coffee at the train station while we waited for our train to Grantham. Once back in Grantham we took a taxi out to Harlaxton Manor and retreived Chelsea's luggage. There were 3 other students that had been touring Europe and had spent the last night at Harlaxton. It was fun hearing Chelsea and her friends swap stories, but I felt sorry for those students that had gone to Italy on the school sponsored trip and were now stuck in Italian airports since the Italian airport workers had gone on strike. I hope they all make it home by Christmas as many had connecting flights in London upon return from Italy.

Chelsea showed me around some of the rooms at Harlaxton Manor, but most had been cleaned out and locked up for the holidays. We phoned for a cab to take us back to the train station after re-packing Chelsea's luggage so she could fit everything into her two bags. 

We had to kill about an hour and half at the Grantham train station before catching our train to London. The cheapest tickets on that Saturday were on a Hull City train so we didn't have the luxury of catching anything earlier than the one we had purchased tickets for. The train was crowded and we ended up sitting in the connecting area between two cars, but we had jump seats for the hour and ten minute ride to London's Kings Cross station.

London felt like a different world than we had been traveling in. It was warmer and there was a definite rush of holiday travelers, many from foreign countries. Our hotel was about a half block from Kings Cross and Saint Pancras stations. Many of the row houses have been converted into "budget" hotels since their location is so convenient to the rail stations! Our hotel, The Alhambra, was clean and well run.  A "budget" bargain at 70 GBP per night, but that included a full breakfast.

We used lastminute.com to purchase tickets to "Lost and Found Orchestra" a new production by the creators of "Stomp". We settled into our hotel and headed down to the Royal Festival Hall theater. The area around the theater was jumping with Christmas fayre booths and rides. This is also where the London Eye is located. We ate at Wagamama before the show.

"Lost and Found Orchestra" is an amazing show and one which I'd highly recommend seeing if you ever get the chance. The Royal Festival Hall is also an amazing theater and we had awesome seats in the 14th row, center for 10 GBP! 

After the show we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed some "down time" lounging on comfortable beds and a TV that actually worked!

Day 10, 19 December - Oxford & Nottingham

There are many whimsical gargoyles on buildings in Oxford.

I slept pretty well at the hostel despite the close proxemity to the trains and the paint fumes from the remodeling. We got out of the hostel around our usual time of 9:00a and walked to high street. We had lucked into a parking space right in the front of the hostel and decided to chance leaving the car there during the day.

Oxford is definitely one of those cities that you don't want to take a car into. There are thousands of bicycles and it appears that the bicycle is the most efficient means of transportation.

We wondered around the city centre until 11:00a, the start of our walking tour. The official City Guides (blue badges) tours are definitely worth the price and Chelsea and  agreed that it would be best to catch a tour when we first get into a city/town.

The tour was led by a very knowledgeable lady that made the tour very enjoyable.  Oxford is the city, Oxford University is the collection of 39 colleges, some that date back to the 1300s. My most enjoyable was Exeter - college of notables such as Michael Palin (Monty Python fame).

After the tour we retrieved the car back at the hostel and headed out of town towards Nottingham. We had decided to drop the car off in Nottingham on Saturday morning as it is a short train ride to Grantham and Harlaxton Manor, where we had to retrieve Chelsea's luggage.

The drive to Nottingham took us a bit longer than planned as the Friday traffic was heavy on the motorways, plus it rained off and on pretty much the whole way to Nottingham.

Another navigation challenge awaited us in Nottingham as we had the hostel address, but not a detailed enough map. We stopped at one of the "welcome breaks" on the M1 hoping for free wi-fi to get some directions in Nottingham, but we had to pay 6 GBP for 90 minutes of wi-fi time. We used all the time catching up on email, the news of my company's re-organization plan. My job is safe for the time being, but my current team is being broken up over 3 different managers and I don't currently know who I will be reporting to.

We did make it to the hostel (The Earl Howe) and this was by far the worst of our accomdations.  It looked like a pub that had it's heyday in the 70's and the rooms hadn't had the decor updated much since. However, the owner is by far the friendlist of any of our hosts we had! Peter is from Australia with a young son in Denmark so he lives in England. Chelsea and I decided not to venture out for dinner so we ended up chatting with Peter and his girlfriend over some pints of Guinness and Strongbow.

3 pints of Guinness made a very filling supper and I slept soundly that night. I was startled to wake up during the night though thinking that the room was a blaze as the electric heater emitted an orange glow that was very bright!

Tomorrow we turn the car back to Enterprise and head to London!