Wow what a crazy couple days its been. My computer says its 2 am in California and its 10 am here. Josh is still sleeping so I figured I'd write a little on whats happened so far!
As you can imagine Thursday was a tortured day at work. I think the last hour of it was the worst, I couldn't focus on anything. Thankfully I wasn't responsible for too much in that last hour other then to finish writing goals to put in my review and study up for some things. Then when I left I found myself soaking it in a little more because I won't be back for a Month since I leave for training as soon as I get back from London. It was bittersweet but once I left I was excited again. Although maybe a little too excited because when Hannah, who gracious picked me up and took me home since my car was being fixed, and I were down the street I realized I had forgotten all the fresh food that I had bought for Quorra and Lily. So back to work to get it.
When I got home I instantly pulled out my long list of things to do, including laundry which I couldn't finish packing until I did. Cleaning the cages, since I didn't want Ali to have to worry about that. Tested the automated timer on the TV, yes its set up so the birds have their stimulation during the day. A lot of little things can add up and next thing I knew a few hours had passed and I had to put the girls to bed. It was sad not having Josh home to do this. Their night time ritual is a little over kill but they are our babies and thats just how it is. After putting them to bed, solidifying most of the list, I showered quickly made dinner and waited for Josh to get home. He had worked late trying to make sure everything was done.
We didn't get much sleep still, 5:30am came very fast. There wasn't too many things I needed to do but the biggest thing was changing the sheets for our bird and house sitter Ali and making sure the girls got their veggies for the day. They aren't use to waking up that early and didn't make a single chirp when we left. They had no idea...
We live on a hill and as we were walking to BART I realized that I was missing my purse. So I ran back for it but in doing so I put us behind time wise. I was so concerned about our passports that I forgot my purse instead. Oh well...The train to SFO requires a transfer to getting on the right line with a timed transfer is the best way to go. So we waited longer and this started to give me some anxiety I don't like being late for anything. Luckily we checked in on our phones to help expedite the process when we got to the airport. They checked our bag for free w00t! We got through security pretty fast and next thing I knew we were waiting to board. We had a layover in Detroit. The first flight is something we've gotten quite use to because its close to what we do when coming home.
The layover was good, we ate a normal meal and we ended up getting Josh a travel pillow and myself a blanket. It seemed a little over priced but I didn't want to regret not having it $20 wasn't so bad.
I was cozy I brought my slippers, hehe. They brought us dinner which I wasn't expecting. Josh couldn't really have it but I decided to because I figured I would try it. As suspected Josh had a very difficult time sleeping. He took medication to help but he just couldn't get to sleep. I felt so horrible but I didn't know what I could do. I managed to sleep pretty well and I was thrilled to have my extra blanket because many people were complaining about it being cold.
It was literally the shortest day ever. I couldn't believe it when I saw the sun setting. The time thing is so confusing when you travel. As the sun started rising I started to see part of the ocean and parts of England right before we landed. It was so surreal and exciting. We had to fill out landing cards which I managed to mess up and had to redo. We got off the plane and went through immigration. It was cool to get my very first stamp in my passport! I had some more money I wanted to exchange. Our exchange rate is horrible of course but it is what it is. After that we grabbed our luggage we where off to find the underground. Getting our oyster cards ended up being a lot more complicated. My commuter card also wouldn't work in the machines they had. You see if you haven't been to Europe recently you should know that everyone's credit cards have these chips in them. You type in a pin with the card, its way more secure but because of these chips American Credit cards don't work in these machines. So we went to a person behind the booth who was able to swipe our cards to get oyster cards.
The underground or "tube" as its nicknamed is pretty cool not to mention clean compared to the BART trains we are use to. Lucky for us the train didn't take too long. The place we were staying is in Shepard's Bush in "zone 2".
Now we had agreed that we wanted to get local sim cards while we were there. Its kind of scary how dependent on phone's we've become. After doing a little research I was set on getting sims through Vodafone. Now our idea was to go to the one in the terminal at Heathrow but after going through customs and immigration we of course couldn't get back to where the store was so we were going to have to just put that off. After getting out of the tube station and attempting to get on wifi we saw a Vodafone store across the street that was open! We got sims and it was a really easy process and almost instantly worked on our phones. After that we headed to the place where we were staying.
My sister's friend Kim and her roommate Janna graciously late us stay in their home. We decided to take a cab instead of a bus to get to the house we were pretty tired. The taxi's are so spacious, there was so much room for our luggage! These are a couple of pictures of their neighborhood which was really cute.
I loved their flat it was so bright!
We were greeted by Kim and Janna who were such amazing hosts. Josh didn't manage to sleep on the plane so since it was earlier in the day, 9 am we decided to take a nap. I didn't think I would nap much since I slept on the plane but I guess I was tired because I fell asleep so fast and stayed that way till around 1. It was a little longer then I wanted but Josh really needed it. After waking up and getting ready we went out to explore. I found a stop on the tube that I though was central and we ended up by Tower Bridge. We didn't have a set plan we just wanted to walk around and just explore. Which was great. Now something a little embarrassing happened... I didn't have a SD card in my camera. Yeah that happened I was so mad at myself but an iPhone I could work with so here are a few.
Our friend Amanda who we met through a mutual friend of Josh's at Grand Valley lives in London. (or did she just moved back to the states this week) She got out of work and we went and had pints with her and her boyfriend Reese. We ended up by Westminster where I saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament for the first time. It really hit me that we were in London! We spent some time with them and it was great catching up. They had to go catch up with friends but they recommended we head to Piccadilly Circus to eat. Now for those who don't know Josh is vegan so its a little difficult just say "hey that place looks cool lets eat there". Pretty much every place we went to was found prior before going there but luckily a lot of places have menus posted outside. We yelped a place in Piccadilly circus but then when we got there it was so packed and way too long of a wait so we started walking around and found a place that served vegetarian Chinese and Thai which didn't look like much. Josh was thrilled and it turned out to be really good too. He ate almost 5 plates, I guess someone was hungry.
Night time in Piccadilly Circus
After eating we called it a night and headed back. A good nights sleep was definitely needed.