Trains, planes, and automobiles

We used LOTS of different types of transportation on this trip. Some trips went smooth and some. . . .lets just say, not so smooth. But I do have some funny stories you might enjoy.

On the plane flight over the Atlantic, I was able to get bulkhead seats. Great, I thought, lots of room to stretch out. Well, lots of leg room, but less hip room. Let's just say that the bulkhead seats are for the tall and skinny, of which I am not. It was not the most comfortable trip I have been on. On the way coming back, though, my son and I shared three seats between the two of us. We have plenty of room to spread out sideways. Also, the bulkhead seats were right by the stewardess's cabinets and the area was noisy and buys all the time. Note to self, do not get bulkhead seats again.

The London rail system was fantastic! We could get just about anywhere in the city or even the countryside with the network or National Rail, Underground, or Light Rail systems. The bad thing was the time it would take to move around. It would still take an hour and a half to get from The Globe Theater to Greenwich.

Oh, and you were not instructed to "Watch your step", but instead were told to "Mind the gap."

Yes, that is a bird in the train station.

We took two tour buses. One trip was a three hour panoramic tour of the streets of London. The tour guide was informative, but seemed rather bored. At the end of the trip I asked him about two landmarks he pointed out but didn't give a history. One was the Monument. It was to commemorate the fire of London. The other was the Marble Arch, which was extra stone from building Buckingham Palace. Gee, I wish he would have said that when we passed by.

The other tour bus, was a long distance coach to Windsor, Bath and Stonehenge. Our tour guide here was a delightful woman name Sondra. She had an adorable voice and way of speaking. "Bong, bong. Time to wake up my little pretties," she would say when we were approaching our destination. "The view is just lovely," she said about our decent into Bath.

After we had seen Stonehenge and were heading back to the bus, we were informed our bus had a flat tire. Great . . . not. . . we were stuck in a parking lot. We waited for the truck to fix the flat, then waited from them to actually fix it. And it took forever. . . so "forever" that our driver met his driving time limit. So we had to stop at a rest stop and change drivers. So, with all the delays, we were three hours late getting back to the apartment. Yuk. . . .

And that was the day after we had another late night. Because I had rented a car and got lost in downtown London. . . . .

Yup, we had our wonderful day out in the countryside and then drove around downtown London for two hours! None of the roads in London are straight, they change name for no reason and the traffic circles are guaranteed to confuse the visitor! My sister pulled out her blackberry and fired up the GPS system in it. It gave me directions, like turn left on St. Martin's, but St. Martin's Street was not on the left! Arrrgggh! I knew that if I crossed the river, I could find the way back to the apartment. We did stop and ask directions multiple times. Finally, we found a bridge to cross the Thames. We were home twenty minutes after that. But it was still 11 pm and we were all exhausted.