London Calling

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November 23rd - arrived in London at 5:00am GMT after a lovely 13 hour overnight flight from Hong Kong. Checked in, ate breakfast, took a nap and then midafternoon explored the area on my own. The hotel is beautiful and is located in the Westminister area, great walking distance to Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, the dock for the River Thames... I hit a local pub, Bad Abbott for lunch - great atmosphere and experience and the food was great.



Later that night, Ellie and Jack ( aka ) Mom and Dad arrived in from Boston. They were wiped out from their 6 hour business class flight from Boston(LOL) so I fed them and then tucked them in for the night. Sunday we took a tour bus around London to see all of the sights, which was super fun. During the changing of the guards we had about 45 mins of free time to explore that area, Ellie was cold and Jack was tired of walking so I deposited them at the bus , walked down about 15 mins to a local pub, drank a pint and then ran back to the bus- I really did have to run because i didn't watch the time correctly, let's say I was feeling that beer after the run. We had lunch on the tour at another local pub near Trafalgar Square called Silver Crossing- was so excited for the " traditional fish and chips" - not that great.. fish was very dry. But we made a lot of friends on the tour and had a fun crew at our table and the beer was good..



Monday we traveled from London to Gatwick to catch our late am flight to Jersey- note to self pay the extra and never fly Fly Be again.. I thought my Dad was going to go bananas at this airport. He did make an interesting friend while waiting for the flight , the gentleman wanted to take his picture and then wanted to know if his lovely wife, Ellie wanted some Whiskey.. Classics- let's just say we quickly moved our seats to a different location while we continued to wait to board our flight.

Jersey turned out to be the highlight of the tour to date.. My parents loved the island and made a nice friend with our taxi driver John who picked us up at the airport. He is about 80 years old, has lived on Jersey his whole life, he took Mom an Dad on a private tour of the island for 4 hours the next day which they enjoyed a lot. I was happy to be on Jersey because I got to see my friends Lisa and John and catch up with them. It was a fun time but I need to remember to just say NO to StrongBow Cider and Whiskey offered by John, let's just say I remember stumbling into a taxi Monday night and closing 2 bars with John and Lisa.

Tuesday- Mom and Dad went on the private tour of Jersey while Lisa and I hopped the local bus and went to the Zoo which was a blast. Excellent food on the island- if you ever go Tropical Paradise - great portuguese restaurant..



Wednesday am- we were up and back at Gatwick airport to take our small plane to Paris. The best part is in reading the flight info it has luggage restrictions, Ellie bought 3 suitcases and 2 carry on's so watching Ellie trying to figure out how to compact everything was a laugh.. Dad referred to it as the show of Ellie pack and repack. Then when we got there we find out, no issues with space since there are only 9 people on the same flight as us 😊



Flight was good and uneventful and then the real fun begin as we landed in Paris- this will be a different blog entry...

London Nov 23- 25 ; Jersey Nov 25-27 , Paris Nov 27- Nov 30

Sue

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Photos

Dad and John ( taxi driver)
Ellie likes to the cut the heads of items in the photo- this is Jersey

Jack at his best
taking a quick nap