Arrival in London














 It is very disconcerting to be flying at 8:00pm then land 6 hrs later at around 7 in the morning.  With no sleep to be had I felt like a zombie.  I was playing catchup with sleep all day.  I did though enjoy the free movies and TV shows on the flight and the dinner and breakfast they provided. The airline also provided each of us with a pillow and blanket to use.  That came in handy.  Once we arrived and had adequate sleep, we did venture out by ourselves to find dinner and found a cute little diner called the Shepherdess Cafe where the locals go.  

We did begin to understand the difference in language as we talked to different people.  Aside from accents, the bathroom is normally termed toilet or the loo.  But all the signs say toilet.  And aside from free toilets here in there most of them you have to pay to go when you are out and about.  The elevators are called lifts.  We ended up using a lot of lifts when we went to Winsor Castle.  The hotel lobby provided juice and biscuits which tasted like shortbread cookies.  Yum.  The free continental breakfast provided each morning felt like a meal fit for a king.  Such a wide assortment of pastries, meats, cheeses, fruit and of course eggs, bacon and sausage(bangers).  The evening meal they had bangers and mash which was mashed potatoes and sausage.  Tastes so much better than the bangers and mash I have had in the US. 

Everything is smaller here.  The cars, the roads, the rooms, the bathrooms, even the size the meals.  We frequented many coffee shops,
and I loved the chai lattes in all of them. Each room had a different color door.  Our room was behind a red door.  Some members felt the hotel was like a brothel with the lighting in the hallway and pictures on the bathroom wall.  Our bathroom had no pictures but they showed me their pictures on their wall and they were quite suggestive.  Seems like something that would be in France.  We had 18 people in our tour group.  All from the US.  Such a nice group of people.  Some are retired, some own their own business and seemed to be working from their phone a lot.  There were mothers and daughters taking trips together, friends who work together, one couple met on a cruise last year and are now traveling together this year. 




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