Most of you have heard by now that Matt and I took our first international vacation! We have been home for about 3 weeks now and Hubby has reminded me that I still haven't posted any pictures to the blog, so here we go...
We left Portland on a Wednesday evening with a departure scheduled for 5:00 pm. All went smoothly except for the fact that neither of us could get any sleep on the flight. 10 hours later (11:00 am UK time on Thursday), two slightly zombified Americans arrived at Heathrow Airport.
Heathrow was very easy to navigate, we were able to grab our luggage, walk through customs, and with a little assistance were able to find the Underground train that would take us within a half mile of our hotel. The Underground is absolutely fantastic! The kiosks were easy to use, the maps simple to follow and trains worked flawlessly. Love, love, love the Underground!
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| Proof positive that I was exhausted. Yikes. |
After hauling our luggage through the sweltering London heat, we arrived at the Hilton London Olympia. I don't exaggerate when I say that the weather in London was downright unbearable. It was the hottest summer they have experienced since 1976. I think for us native Arizonans the misery lied in the fact that air conditioning was a rare commodity that even our hotel was not able to accomodate. Day or night, it never cooled off enough to get comfortable and there was no respite anywhere. The Hilton overall was a bit of a disappointment for the cost, but when weighed against its proximity to necessary locations, it worked out pretty well.
We dropped off our bags in our room and walked over to the Olympia London to pick up our convention tickets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Did you really think these two nerds were going to fly across the pond and not go to a convention?
Ticket pickup was extremely quick and easy, so we went back to the hotel to grab an early dinner.
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| Hubby's dinner: fish and chips with mushy peas. I had a cheese toastie but was so unenthused by it, I didn't bother with photography. |
By this point we had been up for 30 + hours so we were both dragging and wanted nothing more than to take showers and go to bed, so that's what we did.
