Away to Merrie Olde Londontowne

May 3, 2013

After a whirlwind week of cleaning the garage, clearing out offices, searching for just the right rolly bag for Don, planning and preparations we opened our door to our ride to the airport, Carol Seger,  and we were off on this years adventure—Merrie Olde London.

The ride up Highway 280 at 3pm was smooth and scenic, as always.  Little traffic on the road made for a speedy and easy ride up to SFO and we got to the airport quite early.  The checkin went smoothly too and we were sitting in the waiting area two hours early.

When we did board the Virgin Atlantic nonstop to Heathrow we discovered that for the fourth time they had changed our seats and instead of aisle seats across the row from each other we were sitting side by side.  We continually corrected this change every step of the way, speaking on the phone with agents, correcting it online and even at the airport checkin, and it was disconcerting to find that VA computers had modified our request every time. 

But, the good news is that we were far in back of the plane and instead of 3 seats in our row there were only two, with some extra space alongside the window seat, so Don could have his cake and eat it too.  He got to sit by the window and also have plenty of space to stretch out his legs.  So, we stayed put and didn’t complain.

The flight was smooth and VA offered us a huge selection of movies and other activities to enjoy on our personal seatback screens.  I had planned to sleep all the way to London, but instead watched Django Unchained, which was a very powerful movie.  It was a long flight, no crying babies though, and as comfortable as possible with the exception of the hard seat, which made my bottom get numb.  After awhile I sat on the pillow and that helped a bit.

We arrived at Heathrow in a rainy, wet landing—so different from the 90 sunny degrees we have had in Sunnyvale for the last week or so.  We Californians have only seen rain a few times during this winter and spring season.

After collecting our luggage and making our way through the immigration checks we muddled about a bit before deciding to take the tube into London and switch to the DLR light rail on to our exchange house at 27 Ropemaker’s Field.  Don's weather magic prevailed, as usual, and by the time we came out of the airport the rain was over and sun was peeking out between the puffy clouds.


We followed the station worker's directions and changed trains a couple of times before

making our way on foot the last few blocks to our nice house next to a little park.  Nathan, a friend of our hosts, was there to to open the door and show us around our roomy, comfortable house.  I am very happy with the open floorplan and to have a nice big kitchen.

The house is historic and has the name "The House They Left Behind" because during WWII this area was seriously bombed and most of the houses were destroyed, but this one house was left standing.

  

After settling in I made a quick meal of scrambled eggs and then we went out for a stroll along the Thames and

found Canary Wharf, a big business area with a large shopping mall and a Tesco grocery store.  We picked up some coffee and bread before heading back home to bed.