We have had a series of delayed — and thus, missed — flights, so our 7+-hour trip to London turned into a 18-hour marathon. Whatever could go wrong did: our flight out of GR was late leaving, so we missed our plane out of Chicago to London’s Heathrow airport;
we were re-booked into Manchester, but that flight was delayed as well, so we missed our connection from Manchester to London; getting out of Manchester proved challenging, so we spent our Sunday morning in the Manchester airport, eventually leaving for Heathrow after 2 p.m. Gerry summed it up succinctly: “This was an awful trip!”
We are counting our blessings in the fact that we did not check any baggage; had we done so, it is unlikely the bags would’ve followed us on our strange long and winding road.
When we did land at Heathrow (3:30 p.m. locally, six hours later than GR’s 9:30 a.m.), we still had about an hour subway ride to Islington Borough where the Business Design Convention Center (with our Hilton Hotel right next door) is located.
- You can see Gerry in night profile as he walks toward the Business Centre.
Gerry will be conventioning at the business center over the next four days, so we are blessed with its proximity to our hotel.
Our home for this week is petite but comfortable.
We look forward to springy weather; it was 19 degrees Centigrade (66 F) when we arrived and the forecast is for continued sunny days and warm temps. The deciduous trees are all a-bud and folks were outdoors in the sun wherever we went today. This is a nice change from our GR winter, to be sure.
In a brief walk around the area while looking for a good spot for dinner (We ended up at “One and One” restaurant where a Thai food buffet is the specialty;
we enjoyed about three cups of Jasmine tea each.), we encountered dozens of different languages, races, and nationalities. The voices of the street sounded so musical. : )
Gerry has made contact with his colleagues here, so he’s on the way to being all professional. I purchased an “oyster card” for public transportation, so I can go wherever I want for the next 7 days by simply swiping said card across the bus/underground/train readers. We’ll see how far afield I go …
So sorry for the missed connections. Are you still going to an Evensong service while you’re there?
Did you know that Manchester is where Jan and Lori lived while Jan was getting his masters/doctorate about 25 years or so ago. They really liked it there. My dream is to go to Ireland someday because I hear it looks a lot like Kodiak, the Emerald Isle. I will be enjoying your travel blog, as always.