Onto London: Long flights, small cabs, quick naps, and more
Sunday July 9 to Monday July 10:
So we left San Jose Int'l airport in California around 620am Sunday (Pacific time) - having already been awake for 2.5 hours at that point.
A nearly 5 hour flight to Atlanta brought us to one of the busiest airports in the USA with 26 minutes to reach our next gate before boarding began. Somehow we snuck in trips to the bathroom, purchasing snacks, and getting from terminal A to terminal F all in that time - and arrived just as they were finishing general boarding.
I don't think it was "cutting it close" but we were not the first people to board the plane, that's for darn sure. But that's okay.... row 18 seats C, D, E, and F awaited our butts. Just my luck the entire row in front of us was empty except the seat in front of me....and of course that guy had to recline as far back as he could. Oh well.
It was a pretty quick 8 hours over to London. We all tried to sleep but I think the girls had the best luck - of course they both wolfed down some Nyquil cough syrup so it would knock them out - but they are also small and can curl up onto the seat much easier. I recall having a lot of options for entertainment when we flew to Europe by way of Dublin in 2015 and I think there were even more options this time. Delta offered a ton of movies, some newer releases, some from last fall, and some classics. I was happy to see "Hacksaw Ridge" was offered having wanted to see that in the theaters when it came out. Alyssa decided to watch the perfectly themed "European Vacation" - that same one where Rusty is a horn-dog, Audry gets dumped by Jack, Ellen flirts with a French thief, and Clark keeps hurting that guy from Monty Python and gets in a fight while wearing lederhosen. Great movie....too bad "A Pig in a Poke" is a fake game show.
After watching "Hacksaw Ridge" and having portions of my Chicken Cordon Bleu dinner, I tried to sleep for a while but you know how that goes - once I found a cozy spot either I'd get bumped by someone walking down the aisle (or jammed into by the drink cart), or Alyssa would poke me in the ribs on accident, or my foot would hurt, or that dumb ass lady behind me and on the window would cackle and shit much louder than necessary, or there was the guy behind us who did not get the clue that the airplane stewards had turned down the lights to simulate sleepy time.
I don't know why, but when that happens on an airplane, it is almost like the classic Hollywood scene when an alien spaceship hovers over a forest and then lights the whole goddam place up looking for ET to fricken phone home.
Anyway, Elliot never found ET nor got a clue and even though I had one of those sleep masks on, I had pulled them off for a brief moment and flood light boy was just annoying me.
I gave up on sleep at one point and watched the Brad Pitt WWII drama "The Allied" about him and his wife who is French and how they mess up the Nazis in Morocco and then fall in love and doink and have a kid and then ... uh oh...is she a spy or is she not? You tell me.
So we arrived in Amsterdam, grabbed some food, poked around gift shops and found our gate down in the bowels of Schipol airport where the air did not move. Eventually they bussed us out to a smaller KLM flight where we hopped over to London City Airport.
This marks the second time I've flown to London City Airport (LCY) and believe me, as "convenient" as it looks when compared to Heathrow, it really is not. LCY is located just east of Canary Wharf/Greenwich area, has no real good connections to central London, and is a good 60-90 minute cab ride to the center because there are no streets in London with more than 2 or 3 lanes and traffic is backed up everywhere all the time.
We got to LCY and jammed ourselves into a standard cab - great for 4 people - but not when those 4 people have big suitcases ready for 2 weeks of traveling around Europe, soccer gear, and a ton in gifts for our host teams and opponents in Sweden.
Made it to the Ibis Hotel at Euston Station and thankfully they let us into our rooms by 11am.
We crashed like Evil Knevil flying over the Snake River canyon. It felt good to nap. At that point we had been up for nearly 24 hours minus the bits of sleep we had on the flights from ATL to AMS.
Eventually we got a few hours and woke up in time to meet Cousin Ann and her husband Edoardo for dinner and a pleasant walk around Covent Garden and Westminster... but more on that later.
Everyone is in good spirits, we have plenty of British Pounds to survive for a day, and l finally found reliable Wifi to update the blog. Will have to catch up on more later.
We're actually now in our hotel room in Brussels, it is 8pm on Tuesday, and we're all starving. Time to explore and find some Frites! Or waffles...or CHOCOLATE!
Oui!
So we left San Jose Int'l airport in California around 620am Sunday (Pacific time) - having already been awake for 2.5 hours at that point.
A nearly 5 hour flight to Atlanta brought us to one of the busiest airports in the USA with 26 minutes to reach our next gate before boarding began. Somehow we snuck in trips to the bathroom, purchasing snacks, and getting from terminal A to terminal F all in that time - and arrived just as they were finishing general boarding.
I don't think it was "cutting it close" but we were not the first people to board the plane, that's for darn sure. But that's okay.... row 18 seats C, D, E, and F awaited our butts. Just my luck the entire row in front of us was empty except the seat in front of me....and of course that guy had to recline as far back as he could. Oh well.
It was a pretty quick 8 hours over to London. We all tried to sleep but I think the girls had the best luck - of course they both wolfed down some Nyquil cough syrup so it would knock them out - but they are also small and can curl up onto the seat much easier. I recall having a lot of options for entertainment when we flew to Europe by way of Dublin in 2015 and I think there were even more options this time. Delta offered a ton of movies, some newer releases, some from last fall, and some classics. I was happy to see "Hacksaw Ridge" was offered having wanted to see that in the theaters when it came out. Alyssa decided to watch the perfectly themed "European Vacation" - that same one where Rusty is a horn-dog, Audry gets dumped by Jack, Ellen flirts with a French thief, and Clark keeps hurting that guy from Monty Python and gets in a fight while wearing lederhosen. Great movie....too bad "A Pig in a Poke" is a fake game show.
After watching "Hacksaw Ridge" and having portions of my Chicken Cordon Bleu dinner, I tried to sleep for a while but you know how that goes - once I found a cozy spot either I'd get bumped by someone walking down the aisle (or jammed into by the drink cart), or Alyssa would poke me in the ribs on accident, or my foot would hurt, or that dumb ass lady behind me and on the window would cackle and shit much louder than necessary, or there was the guy behind us who did not get the clue that the airplane stewards had turned down the lights to simulate sleepy time.
I don't know why, but when that happens on an airplane, it is almost like the classic Hollywood scene when an alien spaceship hovers over a forest and then lights the whole goddam place up looking for ET to fricken phone home.
Anyway, Elliot never found ET nor got a clue and even though I had one of those sleep masks on, I had pulled them off for a brief moment and flood light boy was just annoying me.
I gave up on sleep at one point and watched the Brad Pitt WWII drama "The Allied" about him and his wife who is French and how they mess up the Nazis in Morocco and then fall in love and doink and have a kid and then ... uh oh...is she a spy or is she not? You tell me.So we arrived in Amsterdam, grabbed some food, poked around gift shops and found our gate down in the bowels of Schipol airport where the air did not move. Eventually they bussed us out to a smaller KLM flight where we hopped over to London City Airport.
This marks the second time I've flown to London City Airport (LCY) and believe me, as "convenient" as it looks when compared to Heathrow, it really is not. LCY is located just east of Canary Wharf/Greenwich area, has no real good connections to central London, and is a good 60-90 minute cab ride to the center because there are no streets in London with more than 2 or 3 lanes and traffic is backed up everywhere all the time.
We got to LCY and jammed ourselves into a standard cab - great for 4 people - but not when those 4 people have big suitcases ready for 2 weeks of traveling around Europe, soccer gear, and a ton in gifts for our host teams and opponents in Sweden.
Made it to the Ibis Hotel at Euston Station and thankfully they let us into our rooms by 11am.
We crashed like Evil Knevil flying over the Snake River canyon. It felt good to nap. At that point we had been up for nearly 24 hours minus the bits of sleep we had on the flights from ATL to AMS.
Eventually we got a few hours and woke up in time to meet Cousin Ann and her husband Edoardo for dinner and a pleasant walk around Covent Garden and Westminster... but more on that later.
Everyone is in good spirits, we have plenty of British Pounds to survive for a day, and l finally found reliable Wifi to update the blog. Will have to catch up on more later.
We're actually now in our hotel room in Brussels, it is 8pm on Tuesday, and we're all starving. Time to explore and find some Frites! Or waffles...or CHOCOLATE!
Oui!
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