Ye Olde London Towne

I think I've finally recovered from London. It was fantastic and exhausting. Spending only 6 days in a time zone 5 hrs ahead and walking all over the city from 9 am to 8 pm tuckered me out. A short list of what we saw:
-Hyde Park
-Westminster Abbey
-the V&A museum
-Salisbury Cathedral and town
-Stonhenge
-Sting's house
-Tower of London(all of it)
-British Museum (Rosetta Stone!!)
-Changing of the Guards
-Harrod's, Top Shop
-Pub Walk on the Thames
-Globe Theater (Antony and Cleopatra)
-Buckingham Palace
-Borough Market
-Tate Modern

You know, just a few things. Needless to say, the next few days after we got back I was asleep by 10 pm. In fact, on Saturday when we got back, I was "watching the Met game" on the couch at 9 and my brother called. My parents answered that I was sleeping so he should tak to me later. It has been said that I protested that I wasn't sleeping and that I was still watching the game. Alas, I have absolutely no recollection of this.

The one part that sucked was time spent in the airport. We knew that our flight was delayed to 11 pm from 9, so we left an hour later for the airport. When we got there, we were given clear plastic baggies like everyone else traveling to London and told that our flight would now be leaving at 2 am. Woohoo. We sat around the airport for a while and then went through security at like 10 to go to our gate. FYI, the seats at JFK are not conducive to sleeping. But the plane that we are taking gets into the gate at 12 and we leave around 12:30, flight goes swimmingly. (Virgin Atlantic is awesome, all entertainment is on demand!) Coming back is a different story. We get to Heathrow under 3 hours before (my parents' fault), since we were told that everything was much better than before, in fact, we were even allowed carry ons, although reduced in size. (so no tampons in a clear baggie) We're standing in line to check in for you know, only like 2 hours. Then we had to go through security. We walk to the area. The line is through all of the shopping areas, food areas and out to the parking garage. Our flight leaves in 30 min. (It was delayed half an hour but we didn't find that out until we got to the gate). The line is moving, and there are people calling out flight times. "11:35" "11:45" Ok. Our flight is at 11:55 so they'll call us soon and then we can just skip ahead. At this point they stop calling out times. We finally get up to where we can see the metal detectors. By this time we have less than 15 min and there's still a snaking line. We literally had our shoes off and threw everything into the metal detector, pick it up on the other side and run. We make it to the gate at 11:53. And then the flight is delayed 30 minutes so it turns out ok, although they start to board just after we have time to catch our breaths. And of course, I get to sit in the row with the screaming baby!! His parents were really trying to calm him, but he was a little guy and his ears probably hurt. Still, 6 hours of a screaming baby on a 7 hour flight is a bit much.

We got home safely and in time to listen to the '86 Mets reunion.

Anyone going to London I suggest a pub walk. Here is my half pint of Young's Waggledance:



And the after shot of my first ever pint: