The 4th was basically a waste, I woke up, killed time most the day as I was already totally packed. We left for the airport around 4, arrived at 5, and texted friends in attempt to stay entertained until it was time to board. The plane ride itself was fairly smooth, but cold, even more surprising the in-flight flood was actually decent. The in-flight entertainment was pretty good too, I watched “Confessions of a Shopaholic” which was cute but pretty predictable. I took Dramamine this time, since in recent flights that are longer than six or so hours I start to feel nauseous, which actually helped with my ability to sleep on the flight, though that only lasted for about 3 hours on and off. When I finally reached London Heathrow, finding the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station was really easy, however getting out of Paddington Station proved more difficult. Luckily when I finally found my way (after asking a security guard at the station) Jess, Keegan and Bec were all there to greet me. Keegan immediately offered to take one of my bags, which was a relief after trekking through London Heathrow and Paddington Station. To my dismay the hotel we were staying at wasn’t right outside Paddington like I’d originally thought…there were a couple of stops left between Paddington and relaxation, but it was fairly easy, especially when Keegan took my other bag off my hands.
When we arrived at our hotel, The Hotel Radnor, it definitely did not live up to the expectations from the website, as they’d warned me. On top of it there were 96 steps through the quirky hotel, where at the top, sadly the TV didn’t work which was a major disappointment. I’d been looking forward to watching the Wimbledon finals in London for months, and because of the hotel I could hear the match but not see it. After a while I decided I needed food, so we left the room and walked around a bit and ended up at Burger King, the one thing I recognized nearby. Once I had the food in hand we headed back to the room to listen to more of the match however that proved frustrating so after a while, before the match was over, it was time for dinner and the first London excursion: the London Eye. Finding it was slightly difficult but we still beat the others there. When we met up they apologized for dragging me out with them on my first night…but I was feeling pretty good and didn’t want to miss out on the Eye either. Staring up at the London Eye made it seem like it’d be a lot scarier than it actually was. The ride takes about thirty minutes and it’s very slow moving. After the “flight” as the ticket referred to it as we hung around the area a while longer and ended up heading back to the hotel around ten, and by then I was getting hungry again. On Jess’ recommendation we stopped at SPAR, a local market for a tuna sandwich that actually was really good. Amazingly enough I managed to stay up till about midnight. Meeting the family was fun, but the kids, mainly Matt and Bec are really energetic, which was hard to be around coming off a 10 hour flight. Overall, not the first day/night I’d been imagining, but still it was pretty cool.
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