Sunday September 5 - Going Home

Today we are finally headed home. The taxi arrived at 6:30AM. It has been a great vacation but it is exciting to finally go home. Here is a shot of our building. Our flat is the first one above the door with a balcony.

Sunrise on the Chelsea Bridge on way to the airport.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning.

There was no one at the airport that Sunday morning and we were checked in and through security within 1 hour. That gave us 2 hours to do some last minute duty free shopping. Cameron decided to check his email before we boarded the plane.

Here I am making some final posts before we leave. How did we end up with so much stuff.....

When we made our initial reservations we pre-booked our seats on both flights. However, United airlines changed the plane and the seats were different. I was assigned to sit by myself. A flight attendant started a conversation with us and I noticed the row behind Audra, Cam and Alex was empty. I asked her if I could move there. Right before we took off, she said go for it. We ended up with 2 rows and 6 seats.

Life is good....

The plane allowed us to watch several movies at our leisure.

I did not sleep on the plane since I knew if I did I would be up at 1AM Monday morning in LA. As it turned our, I fell asleep at 6:00pm Sunday night and woke up at 1:00 AM Monday anyway, Bummer.

We arrived home safe and sound Sunday afternoon at 1:30 PM. After we went through immigration, customs and gathered up our luggage it was now 2:30 PM. We were very grateful that Sandra set us up with a limo ride home. What made it even better was there was a traffic jam on the 405 due to an accident and that delayed us even more. We arrived at our door at 3:30.

Home sweet home!!!

Satuday September 4

One of the things we wanted to do today was see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. I went online to find out when it takes place and it is this morning at 11:30. We headed out at 10:15 and flagged down a taxi.

He took us right to the front of the palace. We were met there by the other 10,000 or so tourists in London.

We were all looking for a spot to watch. Somehow, we were shuffled to a place right next to the main gates but did not give us much of a view to the actual activity going on inside. However, we did get to see the guards, band and horses marching into the palace.

Why am I here?

Once inside the palace, the band began to play several tunes.

We decided to head out of the crowd.

Yup, been there done that.

We walked down the main road away from the palace pick up some lunch and take it with us on the blue line tour bus.

We had about 3 ½ hours to get in the remaining time our tickets had left. After we had another tour while eating our lunch, I realized the blue line would take too long to go all around its route so we hopped off ½ way through and headed to the boat docks to get on the river cruise.

When the Shard building is complete, it will be the tallest building in London, the UK and the European Union. It will be 72 stories tall and will be a pyramid shape.

The river cruise was fun because one of the crew did an entertaining narration that was funny. We got off at the tower of London and spent the next few hours exploring the grounds. We also went and viewed the crown jewels.

Our Beefeater tour guide

the Beefeater's were everywhere

Yeah, I want one....

On the way out.

In front of the Tower of London.

Catapult in front of modern buildings.

After the tower of London, we went walking around looking for someplace to eat dinner. There were no places open which was strange since it was Saturday. We asked a local for advise and they told us to go back to Trafalgar Square since that is where most eating options were.

another monument...

Who is ready to go back to school?

The city was pretty clean. They have a special place for gum and cigarette butts.

We decided to take a regular public double-decker bus to Piccadilly Square. However, since it was Saturday, the bus only took us to Trafalgar Square.

We could not agree on where to eat. We decided to eat at Garfunkel’s again.

Did I have fun today?

Since we had purchased so many things we needed to get yet another bag. This bag would be a checked bag for the trip home. We asked our waitress where we could find this bag and she said go to LillyWhite. It was located in the Piccadilly Square. We had only 15 minute to make it there. We found it and got a bag for only 10 pounds, what a bargain. We did some more shopping in that store since they had such great bargains.

Great bag for 10 pounds!

No more shopping!!!!

After we were done, we get a taxi back to the flat. The taxi drove right through Piccadilly Square. There were so many people that it reminded me of Paris.

Audra and I stayed up late and packed up everything. Our airport ride would arrive at 6:30AM tomorrow morning.

Update

As you may already know, we arrived home safe and sound (and tired) last Sunday afternoon. I got sick during the last days of the trip so I got behind with my posting. This delay was compounded by the kids returning to school 2 days later. I'm almost recovered and now Audra is getting sick.

I will post the last couple of days of our trip within a week. I also downloaded all the video and will create links if you want to view them.

Thanks for following us.

Friday September 3

Today we traveled to London, the last leg of our adventure. Our flight was scheduled for a 9:15 departure. Glasgow airport is 45 minutes away from Ayr so we had to get up around 6:00. One of the best investments on this journey was a global navigation device. It never let us down.

I dropped off everyone at the airport entrance and proceeded to return the rental car. I was back at the entrance in about 15 minutes. When we were checking in, we were told that our luggage was too heavy, all 3 of them. If we wanted to leave them alone, we would be charged an additional 30 pounds EACH. Yes, 90 pounds which is around $145.00 US. We were informed that we could buy an extra bag upstairs and it would be less than the excess weight fees. I ran up and the shop was just opening. To my surprise, the cost for 1 small carry on bag was 49 pounds, yes sir $75.00 US for a carry on that would be about $25.00 at home. Lesson learned; bring an extra bag if you want to shop and bring back souvenirs. At least it was about half of what we were going to be charged if we did nothing.

After that frustration, we were off to London.

Late last night I went online and arranged for an airport transfer to take us to the London flat and I was a little worried since the booking was not made 24 hours in advance as they suggest. When we got off the plane, gathered our luggage and proceeded out we did not see a driver holding up our name. We walked to the area the online instructions instructed us and waited. After about 10 minutes, I called them. Whew, the driver was nearby at a different location in the terminal.We were at our flat in about 45 minutes.

The flat was rather small but neat and clean so we will just be a little cozy for a couple of days. It is located next to the Battlesea Power Station across the Chelsea Bridge from central London.

Our stuff seems to have grown a bit...the bag in front is the special one from Glasgow airport...

We dropped our stuff off and started sightseeing right away. We walked from the flat for about 1.6 miles to the tour bus office. If you purchase tickets online and pick them up at their office you save 25%. That walk took us along the River Thames:

Westminster Abby:

London Clock Tower that has the Big Ben bell:

The parliament building:

 and eventually arriving at Trafalgar Square:



There are a lot of great buildings along the River Thames.

There was a lot of activity going on at Trafalgar Square. We found the "Original London Bus Tour" office which included a river cruise at no extra charge. The only challenge is that the tickets are only good for 24 hours from pickup. It was 3:00 PM when we got started. We jumped on the bus going on the red line and for the next 2 hours we enjoyed a beautiful sunny afternoon on the top of a double-decker bus looking at all the sights with a live English speaking tour guide.

Downing Street

Tower Bridge

Tower of London

Marble Arch

Reflection while on bus

Trafalgar Square

Once off the bus, we were on foot again walking all over. After that, we had a nice dinner at Garfunkel’s café. I had a great meal of roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. It was delightful.

We ended up at the London Eye. It was just about sunset when Cameron and I went for the 30 minute ride above London, it was really cool.

View from London Eye

At the top of the London Eye

We did a little shopping and headed back to the flat using the Underground rail system. It costs 4 pounds each to ride the train. It did not go all the way to the flat so we ended up walking about ¾ mile to get back. Needless to say, we were really exhausted and promptly called it a night.