Amanda's version of travel & day 1

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Amanda's version via an email to my cousin Nick at 2:30am last night:

Sandpaper eyes! Made it until 7:30pm & crashed; woke up at midnight & started worrying about the boy. Remembered you can do voice calls via Skype so I was able to get in touch with him & talk for a few minutes. Helped a lot! Now waiting for Xanax to finish kicking in so I can go back to sleep.

Flight wasn't bad; I dozed for about 45 minutes but Norris didn't sleep. The seats were much more comfortable than domestic economy & the individual screens & free flight entertainment was nice. They had a huge selection of tv & movies; Norris watched 2 movies & I watched The Hunger Games & played a Jeopardy like trivia game & chess. Our seats were 2 together next to the window so we could move the armrest up & down & kind of have our own space. The food on theplane was okay, no coughers, loud talkers or screaming babies. Pretty much as good as you can get for 7.5 hours overnight in a metal tube. The sun started coming up just as we flew over Ireland. It was really pretty. The weather has still been warm the past few weeks so everything is still very green. It was sunny, comfortable & breezy today; supposed to be like that the majority of the week. I miss Cantore telling me temps in Farenheit; my Celcius conversion skills are not so great.

After landing it was a 2 hour journey on train & then multiple subway switches to get to our hotel. Glad I had foresight to pack light so we each only had 1 carry on & 1 backpack. It worked out well but talk about exhausted & feeling gross after all those public spaces. The tube system here is a lot of stairwells and switchbacks. Not hard once you figure it out but also kind of a workout. Norris got whiny ;)

We couldn't get checked in to hotel until 3pm & we arrived at 10am but they gave us a use pass so we got to use the lounge & store our luggage with the concierge Had breakfast there & then went out walking. We saw the Eye of London, Big Ben, Houses of Parliment & Trafalgar Square, all within a short (under a mile) walking distance from our hotel. We were both dehydrated & exhausted & Amanda funky stomach kicked in while we were in The National Gallery (free museum on Trafalgar Square) so we walked back & hung out in the lounge for about an hour & a half until our room was ready.

Unpacked, showered & felt much better. The room is really nice & the location is great but I'm sure Norris will say it's no Drake. The building is so old but for it's rough edges (tiny elevators, funky electrical system from 100 years ago) the charm factor makes up for it We went out to dinner at a place I don't remember the name of (The Bull & The Lamb I think) but I had fish & chips & Norris had sausages & potatoes. The really great thing for me is the amazing selection of hard ciders here! I tried 2 & they were SO good! One was called Apples & Pears but I don't remember the other. Norris had some cask beer he liked. We stopped off at a place called The Globe & had another drink on the way back. I think my favorite thing is how at the pubs there's an outdoor space either roped off or on the sidewalk & you can walk outsidewith yourndrink (where the air is much cooler because almost nowhere is air conditioned - our hotel is though, we made sure of that!) & hang out, get the breeze & people watch.

After that it was pass out & now I'm hoping to go do more of the same!

Lots of good pictures to share already!

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