Four Day Weekend in London: Day 1

Keith and I try to look excited, but
we were actually very tired. #LONDON

It has long been my dream to travel to Europe, and for our 8th Wedding Anniversary, my husband and I decided to splurge a little and go for it. I had been checking out various travel websites, literally, for years. This summer the prices for traveling to London dropped significantly. Our budget was a mere USD 2,000, which when you think of international travel is nearly impossible unless you want to sleep in the park and do nothing. So imagine my surprise when I got on Orbitz and found a trip to London from Columbus, Ohio for around $890 per person! I was excited. We thought on and off about it all through July, we were looking at traveling the first weekend of October. It was a busy time. Our son had football and just started Kindergarten, so we kept going back and forth. Then the start of August and the prices jumped up again. So I toggled the dates and found that November was then in our price bracket. We realized with school and the fact that trip would be so short that our son, who loves to travel, would really not enjoy a non-beach, but instead a historically packed quick hop across the pond. We made arrangements with my parents to watch our son and made sure he was cool with it and went ahead and booked our trip.

All in all, we spent USD 1,964.98 on flights, hotel, and travel insurance (because you never know). It was a fantastic trip we spent the next few months accumulating information and travel gear. I bought myself a new carry-on roller suitcase because we decided that we'd only be gone for four days and it would be better not to risk the airlines to lose our luggage. I purchased several London tourist books, highlighted and created itineraries. Our plans were set, and we were psyched to go! Little did we know our projects wouldn't be as steadfast as we thought.

Now I have never been out of the country via airplane (car, train, and cruise ship, yes...) and last time my husband did he was a bit sick. So, we weren't really sure what to expect. As the days approached, we began really getting ready and finally, the day arrived. My husband, Keith, went to work and we sent our son off to school. I finished packing and printed off several sheets of itinerary putting a packet in each of our carry on backpacks and printed off another for my parents (They were very concerned about us getting on a plane to Europe). Finally, it was two o'clock, and I went over to my parents to walk my Dad through how to pick up my son from school. We walked over to the school and picked up my little boy before returning home to meet Keith. We then brought all the bags down and put them by the door.  We loaded up Liam's bags, clothes, and toys, and set off to Grandma's house. My son was really relaxed about the whole thing, he wanted to go, but he was also really excited about spending the entire weekend with Grammy and Grandpa. We said our goodbyes and I got a little weepy leaving him, but I knew this was not a trip for a five-year-old.

Surpisingly good food on the redeye to
London, and it was Hot. Good job United

We headed back home, closed up the house, turned off the water and unplugged appliances. Then we got our bags ready and installed Uber on my phone. Since it was a Friday and rush hour when we needed to be at the airport, we decided to just take an Uber for the first time. There was one not far away, and within ten minutes we had our bags loaded, and we were off to the airport. Surprisingly the traffic was nill. We got to the airport, tipped the driver, and anxiously entered the terminal. We quickly checked into our United Airlines flight and went on through TSA rather quickly. Most people in line at the TSA checkpoints have one of three faces: the first is this annoyed look, like why is this taking so long, the other is this OMG what's going on look, and the last is a nervous, excited look, trying to remember everything and not alarm the lovely people around you. We were the latter.
After that, we had a little over an hour to kill, and so we got a meal at one of the restaurants in the terminal and then found our gate and sat. My foot wouldn't rest. Still, I was anxious and decided to take a little walk to the ladies room. By time we got back, it was time to board. Our first flight was a short hop over to Washington, D.C. It was a good flight, the plane was super clean and though crowded everyone seemed rather tired and therefore quite.

Once in D.C. we walked down the terminal to our gate and sat for two hours trying to not fall asleep. Then we boarded our very packed United flight from Washington to London. It was full, I was nervous, but the staff onboard were terrific, friendly and seemed more awake than I was. It was a little after midnight when I did finally get some sleep. The flight was continually giving you food, and so the nap was short, but having a full belly prevented air sickness. At some point, my foot slipped out of my sneaker and in the process of trying to get it back on I twisted it. My ankles are not very flexible. So by the time we got to London, it was a bit swollen. Still, we were thrilled once we made our final approach to London and down into London Heathrow. It was one of those moments when you literally have to pinch yourself. The pilot came on and said, "Welcome to London Heathrow." The smile did not soon dissipate from my face.


To be continued...