Greetings FROM LONDON!!!

We are here in London! Yay! It was a very long flight, we took off at 4pm, we were served dinner and then they played 3 movies back to back. I was pretty tired so I tried to sleep through the last 2. Except I had the most fidgety person sitting in the seat next to me... my husband! He NEVER stopped moving! And when he moved himself to get more comfortable, the whole seat moved with him. It’s not really his fault, but God love him, he nearly didn’t make it off the plane intact.

We got through Customs and grabbed our bags pretty quickly. For such a huge airport, it was really nothing impressive... the carpets were worn and the place was kinda boring. Not like Vancouver Airport. We decided to take the London Underground or Tube from the airport to our hotel because it’s cheapest - but try that with a big backpack, a full and heavy laptop bag and 2 wheeling suitcases... plus Shamus had his own stuff. The worst part was walking and looking for our hotel with all the bags! Short walk from the Underground station, but we didn’t know which hotel we were looking for.

Once we got to the hotel, when I went to check in, I was informed that since when I booked (online with Priceline.com, and only $90 a night, which is below their lowest price) I paid for a ‘standard room’, it meant that they could give any kind of room that was available. I could either have a smoking room with 2 double beds, a NON-smoking room with 2 twin beds, or for only an extra 36 GBP a night (over $60) I could upgrade to a 2 doubles non-smoking. I took the twin beds, and really at least this way I know I will get a decent night’s sleep. The only problem is that the room is TINY. Shamus guesses 12” X 15”, and then a tiny bathroom. But we are really only going to be here to sleep, so we don’t care.

We laid down for a while to take a short nap (I told Shamus to wake me in an hour) and woke up 3 hours later. Oops! They say that the best thing for jet lag is to get on the new time as soon as possible, but we felt like we had been up all night (wait... we were) and the nap was nice. After a shower and getting changed, we decided to head out on the town.

We walked from our hotel, with some detours along the way, to Harrods Department store. What a HUGE store! And so expensive, or ‘posh’ as the English would say. I saw a pair of lace panties that had a fresh water pearl g-string. They were selling for $245... Shamus and I got a kick out of that! We looked around the whole store. I especially liked the kids stuff, and really fancy expensive strollers. Shamus liked looking at the mountain bikes. We ended up only buying a bag from Harrods for my mother and a Harrods magnet for back home.

Things really are SO MUCH more expensive in London! Seriously, you look at the price in pounds and think it’s kinda reasonable... and then you realize that it’ll cost you twice as much in dollars. Not to mention that half the stuff you can get back home for cheaper.

After our adventures in Harrods, I looked in the guide book to find a good place to eat supper, and found Zetland Arms, a pub halfway between Harrods and our hotel. Very noisy pub, loud music and people talking. We shared the soup of the day, and I got the Shepard’s Pie (they make it with lamb! Yum!) and Shamus got the pie of the day. Shamus tried an English beer, but he wasn’t impressed and didn’t finish it.

Back to the hotel around 8:30pm, and we are exhausted! So early to bed for us last night.... it's so strange to be 8 hours ahead of everyone back home. I hear you guys got a big dump of snow! Not sorry to miss out on that. It's sunny and 13 C here!

This morning I woke up really early for some reason and listened to podcasts until Shamus woke up. Now we are heading out to explore this big city......