Hello People!  Sorry that I’ve been AWOL!  It’s been a little hectic with the time changes, life, etc.

So Deana and I made it to Scotland safely!  We got up EARLY to catch the underground to the Victoria Train Station, where we caught an express train to Gatwick Airport.   The flight, when all was said and done, was a pretty short one – just over an hour.  We landed to dark skies in Edinburgh, but we were jazzed to check things out!

The local transport in Edinburgh is, IMHO, not as tourist friendly as London.  No underground, but TONS of busses flying here and there.  It was a bit daunting to figure out how to navigate the system (especially with two way-too-full suitcases), but here is where I share that Scottish people are UBBER friendly!  We took the express bus to downtown Edinburgh and then connected to the local bus that lead us to our hotel (which was a bit off the tourist stomping grounds).  At the time we didn’t realize that there was a freaking bus stop RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR HOTEL, and instead got off two stops before…..walking a bit with our luggage.  We laughed about that once we figured it out.  But we were SO pleased with the Holiday Inn Express, Waterfront!!!!  Felt just like home and had a HUGE room by European standards, a HUGE area for the continental breakfast, and stellar staff that were VERY friendly!  In fact, when we checked in the receptionist was named KIRSTIE!  Isn’t that cool?

Anyway, Edinburgh proved to be amazingly beautiful.  The buildings, the green grass, the expansive views…..and always friendly people who went out of their way to be helpful.  We were able to take a Trike Tour with a good looking man named Gordon, and viewed some of their cathedrals as well as their museum.  The food there was similar to London (not surprisingly), but at least they gave us malt vinegar for our fish and chips!  It was also very COLD!  Oh, in earlier posts I said it had to be below 45 degrees – it was!  Most days were in the low 30’s!  I even was victim to walking on black ice in London!  THAT is another story in itself!  🙂

Anyway, it was cold to be out all day in that weather, but surprisingly we survived.  It helped that we would stop in pubs for meals and such.  But let me tell you, my hair still feels dry and damaged.  LOL  Like I care.

So, heading back stateside, we again needed to leave before the sun rose (which is an interesting idea, since often the cloud cover hid the sun all day!).  We got on the local bus right outside our hotel at about 4:30am and took that to the express bus to the airport.  Once we got there,I freaked at first because our flight was with American Airlines…..but they were nowhere to be found!  Fortunately, Deana is much more level headed in such situations, and she clearly remembered that British Airways are partners with AA, so we were actually flying with them.  But the travels were LONG and a bit HARD.  We first flew to London Heathrow, then connected to a flight to Chicago.  But first we needed to go through security at Heathrow that was an ordeal in itself.  That took about an hour alone!  Once we got to the plane (which was jam full, by the way), we just sat there and flew, you know?  But then in Chicago we needed to go through customs.  By this point we had been traveling about 16 hours!

And I am not ashamed to say, the Chicago Customs people are FREAKING LAME!  First of all, their system seems whacked.  They separated US Citizens from foreign visitors.  I have no problem with that at all.  However, one would think that there would be a system to determine which gates needed employees to screen incoming travelers.  In our case, 75% of the travelers were US Citizens.  However, I would guess that 75% of the staff were working on foreign travelers.  The foreign travelers were processed in about 7 minutes, while us US Citizens took upward of 45 minutes.  We got to the front of the line at about 38 minutes when someone had the great idea to start utilizing the agents that were just standing there, as there were no foreign travelers to process.

THEN, when it finally got to my turn, I get a total jerk!  I have been blessed to have been able to traveled all over the world.  I have had to go through a bit more intimidating immigration processes, such as into Russia.  But overall, the standard questions are, when returning to the United States, are “where are you coming from?”, “how long were you there?”, and “was this business or leisure”.  I have no problem with that.  In fact, truthfully, I have no real problem with ANY question because, in truth, these people are there to protect you and me from scary people entering our country.  But maybe it was this guy’s attitude (which I suspect was related to him being a “little man”), coupled with my 16+ hours already into my trip……..the interaction didn’t go well.

First of all, I was already irritated as I had just spend the last 30+ minutes in line watching these agents do nothing, as the rest of us stood there waiting for someone to process us.  THEN, when I finally got to Mr. Custom-Little-Man, he immediately treated me like a criminal.

MCLM:  Where are you coming from?

Me: Scotland, after a few days in England

MCLM:  Why were you there?

Me:  Vacation

MCLM:  Why did you go there for vacation?

Me:  (suprised)……um, I love London and wanted to see Edinburgh

MCLM:  How many times have you been to London before?

Me:  (getting irritated) this was my second trip

MCLM:  I don’t see another stamp for London

Me:  I changed my last name since I went there the first time……..the stamp is in my old passport

MCLM:  Do you have a job in the United States?

Me:  (Now getting pissed) Do I have to have a job to be allowed in?

MCLM:  No

Me:  (rrrrr) Do I have to answer that question to be allowed in?

MCLM:  Do you have a job?

Me:  Yes

MCLM:  What is your profession?

Me:  Are you serious?!?!!?!!?

MCLM:  Answer the question.

Me: (who, seriously, had wished I could have thought to answer “Exotic Dancer” at this point, but it came to me later) I am an accountant.

MCLM:  Okay, you can go. (this interchange took about 3-4 minutes)

I took my passport, gave him the dirtiest look I could muster, and stormed off.  Of course, Deana did NOT go through a similar experience because, apparently, she didn’t get a little man who needed to prove he was this strong authority or something.

But the fun didn’t stop there.  Because, as it happens, we were required to GET our luggage and ROLL it to put on a belt “for security screening”, before we could connect to our next flight.  I wondered what the point of THAT was, as we didn’t stay, didn’t have to divulge anything…….so why couldn’t the process be done by the airline????  But maybe I am asking too much.

Once we got on our final connecting flight from Chicago to LAX, I was so ready to be home!  I really don’t have much to complain about at this point (shocking, I know!).  We arrived, grabbed our bags, and took off.  At this point we were close to the 24 hour mark of our travels!  All  on my birthday, no less!  One good thing about flying west on your birthday is that the day lasts a very long time!  Whoot!

Okay, that is all I am going to write about now.  More later for sure.

Gina out

So we are ending day 3 in London…..oh wait, is it 4?  Hmmmm.  It’s hard to keep track.  We have spent two days of intense site seeing since I last wrote, and unfortunately I don’t have much time left on my internet hour to get into great detail.  However, it’s been a BLAST and I am blessed beyond words!  Just a short list of things we’ve seen:

Kensington Palace

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey (an AMAZING tour that had us both in awe)

The Tower of London

London Eye

Thames

Hampton Court

The Original Hard Rock Cafe (London baby!)

Taken the Underground, a Train, as well as the River Boat

That’s all I can think of right now.  It was raining every day except today, which proved to be a very sunny day.  NOT warm however – in fact it seemed much cooler than the other days!  I would say it didn’t get above 45 degrees.

And as for the American Dollar – I curse you!  I now understand at a very personal level how very weak you are!  Do you know how painful it is to change in $200 and get about £102?  And although it is not Great Britain’s fault my money is so weak, do you know how painful it is to sit down to get a burger, let’s say, and think “Wow, this burger is going to cost me about $18!”  PAINFUL!  But I wouldn’t change this trip for the world!

That’s all I have now……..more later I hope!  We leave for Scotland tomorrow early in the morning – have to catch the underground to a train that will take us to Gatwick Airport, where our flight leaves at 8:45am.  Neither Deana nor I have ever been to Scotland, so we are very excited!  Let’s see if it competes with our current favorite place – LONDON!

Gina OUT

So if you didn’t know, Deana and I are presently in the glorious city of London – my very favorite place in the world!  We were blessed to be able to go here via a huge miracle – one I will elaborate on perhaps later as I have only paid for 1 hour of internet service and there’s so much I need to accomplish on the internet before that!  So onward….

We left LAX on Friday, 11/27 at 5:30.  The non-stop flight was just over 8 hours and was not the best, nor the worse I’ve been on.  I guess flying to Russia a couple times makes an 8 hour flight seem shorter, huh?  In any case, I have a few things to suggest to international travelers:

1.  Do NOT talk really, really loud when the people next to you are sleeping!

2.  Do NOT laugh outrageously loud at the movie you are watching as the people next to you are sleeping!

3.  Do NOT assume the person next to you will be your personal pillow.

(Do you see a theme here?  lol)

We arrived at Heathrow Airport on Saturday at 11:15 local time (London is 8 hours ahead of Pacific Time).  Deana and I did not sleep a lick on the plane (based on the above, I guess you know why!)  In any case, we were jazzed to be in London!  We found the underground quickly but had to figure out where our hotel was.  The underground ticket attendant was UBER helpful and not only told us the station to end at, but even what streets to walk down!  We got to the ending, walked a short skip, and were at our hotel.

Now the hotel is typical Europeanish – very small rooms by American standards.  But, having been fortunate enough to travel thus far, we are no longer shocked by the size.  However, we DID decide to “take a short nap”, which turned about to be about 6 hours!!!!  Whoa there!  In her defense, Deana DID try to wake me about 1 hour in, but I asked for 5 more minutes.  The rest, as they say, is history!  But, once we woke, we took off into the immediate city for dinner and checking out the night life.  And, as fortune would have it, we found a Wagamama!!!!  This is the first restaurant we ate at during our 2003 trip as well (based on a recommendation we received then) and we repeated it this trip, too!  Wagamama’s is a japanese restaurant chain and it is very, very yummy.  And, since it was rainy, the soup I got hit the spot.  Chaching!

Special shout out to Kenny, who called me at 8:45pm California time – or around 4:45am our time!  LOL  We had a nice chat when we finally connected and he is awesome.  I talked to Josh too and that rocked.

Today we got a late start based on our usual travel cycle – 8:30am.  We picked up our 3 day London City Pass and took off!  One instant set back……two of the main lines that we needed to get where we were going were shut down!  Dun dun dun!  Hello!  But don’t worry, we are resourceful!  We pulled out our underground map and figured out an alternative route, which meant we had to walk for about 15 minutes towards to Tower of London.  We made it no problem!!!!  And let me remind you, or tell you as the case may be, I am a HUGE English history buff!  Walking on the grounds and throughout the Tower was IMPRESSIVE!  Seeing the area where Anne Bolyn, Katherine Howard, and others were executed was surreal (and, fwiw, I feel for the queens…..).  Seeing the carvings (or graffiti) of those held in the Tower was amazing.  Just BEING where so much has taken place over hundreds of years blew my mind…….words cannot express really how I feel!

We then puzzed around, getting lunch at a local pub.  Me, fish & chips (I would have enjoyed it more had the fish not had the skin) and Deana pizza (which was very yummy indeed!).  We then hopped on the City Cruise that took us up the Thames to Westminster Abbey, which is near Big Ben, the London Eye, etc.  Too bad is was FREAKING FREEZING!  LOL  Nothing we can’t handle.  We then had the same problem with the underground routes being closed, but we just walked a bit and figured our way using various other routes.  I must say, I feel pretty darn resourceful!!!

Have I mentioned that I LOVE London?

We stopped by Starbucks, where my order of Cafe Mocha with four shots of espresso caused not one, not two, but THREE confirmations (“Do you REALLY want 4 shots?!?!!?”)  That has never happened to me before!  We then went to the Pharmacy and score two boxes of pain meds with codiene, OVER THE COUNTER!  Whoot!  Love that part of London!  We will probably get two more tomorrow too!  Love it.

Now, we sit surfing the net, drying, and sipping our Starbucks.  It is almost 6pm local time and already dark.  We haven’t planned tomorrow’s agenda yet, but I will try to update you next time!

Also, if you are a praying person, I’d appreciate yours as I tentatively have an interview scheduled for 12/8.  They know I am Great Britain so that’s cool.  More on that later.

Gina and Deana OUT!  🙂