First Day

We made it here, after what seemed like two full days of traveling and losing an entire night on the way over. We added a day because we had to pick my mom up at the airport a day ahead of time and then stay in Reno to catch a wee a.m. flight. Didn't get much sleep on Saturday night. It's a long plane ride, made even longer by the fact that we had to go east on a puddle hopper to San Francisco first to pick up a long flight west straight to London. A three hour layover in San Francisco turned into a two hour flight delay in Reno instead and then just enough time to get to our boarding gate in "San Fran" as the flight attendant called it. The flight was uneventful - except for that first long delay - but oooooohhhh sooooo looooong. i thought of Deb's awful plane experience last month. Ugh. We got a couple hours of sleep. You just can't do much in those tiny upright seats.

We made it in to Heathrow early this morning - at what would be around 1 a.m. our regular time zone. Sam and Kyla were thrilled to see us and had already made London their new hometown. We had to stay up all day so we can sleep tonight and be on the right time zone schedule. We decided to do the one thing I most wanted to do first, go to the Moroccan restaurant. We couldn't find it, asked a zillion people and got almost a zillion answers, finally found not the original restaurant that William and I had eaten at, but a second restaurant run by the same people. Sam was really leery but when the food came and was delicious, we all declared the experience a huge success. The rest of the day we've been wandering around - St. Paul's Cathedral - we decided not to pay to go inside. Walked across the Thames on the pedestrian bridge to the Tate Modern, which Sam found "interesting" - he entertained us by naming the art exhibits silly names. We also went to the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square and that went over better. Hubby and I were oohing and ahhing over all the paintings and Sam and Kyla weren't familiar with 99% of the artists. So, I guess hubby and I leave the museum visiting until after the kids fly home.

We just had a very nice Italian dinner and a quick stop at the internet cafe and FINALLY it's late enough to go get some sleep. I'm looking forward to being refreshed and relaxed tomorrow.

It's so fun to be back here in London, but also a bit surreal. It doesn't seem like it can really be true. And being back, it's interesting - some things I thought I remembered, all seem new to me again. Other things that enchanted me the first time - seem "ordinary" this time around as I already know about them. Still amusing, but not amazing. Well, gonna run out of time here. So, ta ta until next check in.