We're Home!

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4 countries, 3 ferries, 7 planes, 15,000 trains, 1 eurostar, 4 buses, loads of photo's and money later we are back!!!

Came home last night and we were both sooo tired as had some trouble in London - we missed check in for our flight to Hong Kong on the way home at 1020 am The wrong terminal number was on our flight tickets, it said 3 but it was terminal 1 we had to check in at. Ifhe s you have been to Heathrow Airport before you would know how HUGE it is - so poor John had most of our luggage as I was a hopping around the airport on crutches and we had to get to terminal 1 to check in and missed it by 10 minutes. I cannot believe how huge the airport is. The tube to the airport took longer than expected as we thought we could get the 1 train but actually needed to get on 3 different trains (later we noticed we could have gotten just 1 !!) so they wouldnt let us check in but the manager at Finnair was so good - he straight away took control and showed so much concern and empathy for us trying to run around airport with a sore foot and loads of luggage so o he grabbed some luggage of John and took us to help desk to arrange more tickets. By this point I was worried we would need to spend so much money to get on another flight. We had a flight to Finland to connect to Hong Kong so the managed to book us in another flight for later at 2100 which was straight to Hong Kong and we didnt have to go to Finland which was great that we didn't have to swap planes at Helsinki Airport. Then then gave us both a 10 pound voucher to buy breakfastlunch which was really nice of them ...but thennnn we also got upgraded to business class haha. The manager was so great and did everything he could to help us. I was suprised as thought it was kinda our fault we missed check in as mis judged timing but but Finnair had swapped terminal numbers so the manager felt at fault ?? Business class was nice as we could stretch out and had lots of room!

But anyway - we had such a great time. London was lots of fun, we managed to get tickets into Buckingham Palace and had a tour which was very rare as its happened to be opened on the day we went - i think it was open for 2 weeks for tours and apparently its something they never do. So we had a great tour - i told John to get one of the security guards to inform the Queen that I was home and am ready to be showed my room haha. I loved seeing the ballroomdinner room - it was amazing with all the lights and the dinner table was set with perfections ready for 100's of guests. We saw where the Queens sits and eats dinner !!! Unfortunately we couldnt take photos but the photos would not do any justice anyway. In london we also saw the musical Chicago was really good - for those that have seen the movie it was very similar but had lots of added humour. Hmm what else is there. Oh we did the normal sight seeing of Westminster Abbey, London Bridge, London Tower (saw the crown jewels ..wow!) Big Ben, Went on the london eye and more!

Paris - we had a great 4 days in Paris and the Eiffel Tower was so COOL! Lots of pictures! Sacre Coure I mentioned was also amazing. You walk in and the atmosphere was beautiful - i had tears in my eyes the second I walked in. My Grandmother who has passed away would love that I was in there so I went and lit a candle for her and set it up on the hall with all the others - i also lit a candle for my great grandmother who has since passed - so it was very special for me to be able to do this. We visted Saint Pauls Cathedral in London as well but Sacre Coure i enjoyed way more.

We went to the Louvre and poor John wheeled me around on a wheel chair for 3.5 hours. It was much easier for him to do that then worry about me with crutches and we got to see much more. The first thing we did was see the Mona Lisa and as I was in a wheelchair security took John and I right in front of the Mona Lisa - they have it blocked off with ropes and you need to stand a few metres away from it but I got right in front of it - it took a while to sink in as I was staring at it going"hmm right ok - so that's the Mona Lisa" haha we were very lucky.

Both London and Paris we did bus tours and it was the best way to see everything - we also used the underground to get along a fair bit.

As we missed our flight in London we had the whole day to kill - 1020 am to 9100 that night - so John suggested we go spend the day at Harrods - i nearly fell on the floor as when we went there he was like "can we gooo yet" so of course I jumped at the opportunity. So we got on the train and 30 minutes later we were in Harrods. I got myself a VERY expensive pair of Bvlgari sunglasses - which I love and got some gifts. It was sooo much fun haha.

Mush more stories to tell but I will leave it to when I see you all otherwise will have nothing to tell you! We are happy to be back - spending 22 hours on airplanes to get home is very tiring and last night slept from 1600 to 4 in that morning- got up and made some food as was hungary (it was lunch time in London time) then went back to sleep and woke up at 8.30 this morning BEST SLEEP ever! So now I am ready to visit Chadstone and spend my left over money - watch out Chaddy!

Cannot wait to see you all and show you photo's - I am going to put more up now!

Love you all
Sammy and John

xoxo

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