England 2017 - Monday & Tuesday 5/16/2017

Well, the first travel day is always the longest. Our day started at 6:00 AM on Monday, up and Deb handling last minute work related projects.  It doesn't help that she was up until 1:00 AM the night before still working.  Projects finished, we turned our attention to finishing up the planting left over from Sunday night.  At 11:30. Deb hopped in the shower and Mark started assembling bags for the trip to airport.  Wonderful Dennis picked up Deb and Tim Duggan, our traveling companions for the next two weeks, then stopped to get us loaded into his truck and on to Eppley for the start of our adventure.

Arrived at 1:00 and, first time in recent memory, no passengers waiting at the UAL checking counter.  We strolled up, handed over our passports and bags and headed up stairs for some coffee and the wait for the flight.  Left on time and arrived in Chicago early. Deb treated us all to a visit to the UAL club, where we stocked up on a few glasses of wine, a gin & tonic, and some snacks and fruit - a welcome break. We trekked from our arrival terminal E to Gate C19.  We already knew that the flight was delayed by an hour waiting for a plane and crew, but it was actually nearly 8:00 before we taxied away from the gate well past the original scheduled 6:10.

Flight over the water was a bit bumpy, delaying the food service.  When the food was finally served, it turned out to be well less than appetizing.  The good news; drinks and wine were free.  After a sleepless night and the unpromising excuse for a croissant (inedible,) we arrived as a tired and weary quartet.  We were in good company with another few hundred as we stood for an hour getting through Border Control.

We were met by a car & driver and spent the better part of an hour driving from Heathrow into London and our eventual destination of the Hotel Windermere - home for the next three nights. As rooms were not ready, we dropped our bags and headed to a nearby pub for a lunch of wine, ale, steak frites and ploughman's sandwiches.  Sated, we walked to Victoria Station and picked up a hop on, hop off ticket to bus around the city seeing sites.  Eventually we disembarked, spent a good half hour waiting on a different bus and then back to the Victoria station and a walk to the Windermere. Our rooms were ready so we looked (less than stellar, good bath but very small by our US standards.  Will take some getting used to.)

In keeping with our rule not to nap the first day in, we booked a restaurant for 7:00 - Grumbles, a few blocks away.  Excellent meal of Sea Bream roasted on a bed of vegetables gremalotta, mussels and chips, and a very tasty burger.  Tim, being his atypical adventuresome eater self, learned how to strip the skeleton from the bream and thoroughly enjoyed his fish.

Back to the hotel; Tim and DebD retired, while Mark and DebC took a stroll to Orange Square for a chance to book Thursday night's restaurant.  After that success, they stopped at the Orange Bar for a nightcap of a Pinot Noir and headed back to the hotel, exhausted but a stellar first day.  Into "pass-out" mode by 10:30.