The London Impromptu Vacation

Our European trip got started off great on the 16th of December!  Rohan slept the WHOLE 9 hours to London, waking up just on landing.  We had a great couple next to us from Northern UK and their sons Oliver & David.  We slept almost as much as Rohan and we were ready to go when we landed on the 17th at London's Heathrow Airport.  Due to somewhat icy conditions we were on the tarmac for almost 2 hours.  The pilot was great and let us roam and snack while we were in line (AKA queue), we were the 15th, and last plane that was in line and allowed to land.  They opened up the cockpit for tours and Rohan loved the lights and buttons (so did Dad!).  Oliver was very nice and shared a lot of his toys with Rohan.  They had a whole airport map and setup for him and Rohan loved it.  We'll definitely have to get something like that, although Rohan is content with Dad's shitty drawings of train tracks and road on napkins for now.

Since we were only supposed to be in London for 90 min, we missed our connecting flight, which turns out, was grounded anyway.  Then the fun started.  We waited in line for our bags for almost 2 hours.  The signs didn't list our flight for which bag area to go to, but most people were at carousels 8 & 9.  Mara walked around with Rohan (now in his backpack) and saw carousel 5 had our flight listed, but there were only 4 bags on it...all from different flights.  We waited there, then started walking around.  Mara happened to notice a passenger from our flight with his bag, and he told us our bags were at carousel 10, and sure enough they were! We got them, passed through customs (which was just a hallway that said customs...no agents, no stamp...just a hallway).  British Airways (BA) told us to get a hotel for the night by using the terminal's hotel booking kiosk, adn they would reimburse us £200 (about $300 US). We waited in line for 3hrs before we found out they only had hotels for £400-600! Bullshit. We hit up the Marks & Spencer Simply Food and got a fairly healthy snack of peas, cheese, pineapple and mango, and whole wheat bread. It was pushing midnight so we just found a nice cozy spot of tile and crashed. I got about 3hrs sleep, Mara about 2, and Rohan also about 2.  We got in the rebooking line around 2:30am on the 18th, which opened at 5:00am.  They did bring us some blankets (which we used throughout the trip to keep Rohan warm in the backpack), and also some water.  There were even clowns at some terminals...yeah...

I should preface this next part by saying the BA staff was VERY nice and friendly.  There wasn't a single person that was crude or mean for our entire ordeal, even with the more irate customers.  We waited in line until 5:00am...then 5:30...finally 6:00am they opened the rebooking lines.  The only problem is only 3 people showed up for work that day.  Keep in mind, there are ~70,000 people in our terminal alone (Terminal 5).  I talked to an agent who said they were either not coming in for the weather (more on that in a sec), or they just didn't want to deal with people yelling at them all day.  I can't blame them.  99% of the people were annoyed, but dealt with the delays well.  1% however were yelling and being generally pissed off.  Around 10:30am (8hrs in line) they shut the lines down, and told everyone to "Go home".  That's when they brought out the armed security.  Like I said, most were fine, but some were a little on "edge".  Surprisingly, we were in great moods, just happy to be on "vacation", and the experience was something we'll learn from for sure.

Josh, our proxy tour guide, set us up in a hotel in London.  The reviews weren't great, but the price was right, so we hopped on the train to Paddington Station, which was about a mile from our hotel.  We hiked, while dragging our luggage through the snow, with no map, or phone, but a rough idea of where the hotel was.  Mara spotted a nice Indian Restaurant, Flavors of India, so we stopped in for some awesome food. Rohan even got some Xmas chocolates from the owner...:)  We continued down a really beautiful street, lined with old townhouse mansions, and ended up taking the long way to the hotel, but that seems to be our mantra.  We got to our hotel, Hyde Park Towers, and the staff was great.  The room was a little small, but overall, we were just glad to be out of Heathrow!  We wanted to call Josh from the hotel, but our phone didn't work for outside call, so I went to the pay phone downstairs.  I tried using Josh's calling card, but it was a rotory phone, so it wouldn't take it, and I didn't have any UK Pounds on me, since we were only going to be in London for an hour or so!  I headed out and found a currency exchange place and headed back to our hotel and called Josh.  We spent most of the night on our phones using WiFi to try and rebook a flight, but we also looked at renting a car, taking a train, or even a bus.  We found a train ride that would take us from London, to Paris, to Saarbrücken (near Josh), but it was filled in the short time it took me to fill out my info.  On a side note that turned out to be a good thing.  St. Pancras Station, where we would have left from, had a 5 hour line wrapped around the outside of the building.  It made BBC... We took a walk to find some food and ended up at a pub called The King's Head for a Guinness for me and a glass of wine for Mara. We check fares when we got back and FINALLY we found a ticket from London City Airport, flying into Frankfurt the next day on Lufthansa Airlines.

By the time we woke up the next day (December 19th) our flight was already cancelled...FFS. We talked to Josh and he tried calling BA to rebook and the queue was 630min, 10 HOURS! We found another flight, leaving the next day from London City, but we had the whole day to explore London. We headed out to Paddington Station and while we were in line for train passes 2 women came up to us and gave us their all day passes! We headed out to the Museum of London, free of charge that day!  I forget that the USA is a relatively new country, and seeing the vast history of London was amazing!  We hit up the Pret A Manger across the street for Lunch, and they gave Rohan a balloon for being so cute (which he quickly lost down the subway tunnel)...:)  After lunch we walked down to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was amazing in it's size and architecture.  We strolled around inside and saw a pretty weird manger scene (see pics).  Afterwards we walked down to the Millennium Bridge and got great views of the Thames, the London Eye, and the Tower of London up and down the river.  While we were waiting for a train, Mara was studying the London Underground map and saw that there was a train station (Bayswater) less than a block from our hotel!  It beats walking the mile to Paddington!  Turns out it was right next to the currency exchange place I hit the first night but my blind butt didn't see it...  On a side note, what I did happen to see was a plaque on our hotel that stated it was Jimmy Hendrix's first London home, called Stone Free...:)  We made frequent trips to a mall called Whiteleys near our hotel for coffee breaks at Café Rouge, to warm up, and to check in with Josh periodically.  We capped off the night like most Londoners...with tea and crumpets from Tesco or M&S Markets

We slept like rocks until 9am on the 20th.  Josh had us flying out at 7:10pm, so we had the whole day to check out London!  We mapped out Buckingham Palace, The Tower of London, London Bridge, and the V&A Museum of Childhood, walking a lot of it, and really enjoying taking in the city.  It was really cool for us to see these sites we've only read about, and to get a little bit more of an idea of layouts and the areas surrounding them.  We thought we'd do something for Rohan since he was a super rock star this entire trip!  The Museum of Childhood was fun for him, although he wanted to play with all the antique trains and toys.  Luckily they had some out for kids so he was really happy to run around (and we were more than happy to accommodate!).  Before leaving, we hit up a tavern called Taylor Walker and got some fish & chips and a Guinness.  We checked out of Stone Free and headed out to London City Airport.  Long story short...Flight was pushed back further and further, and eventually cancelled at 9:30pm, after we had been at the airport for about 5 hours (trivial compared to our ~48hrs at Heathrow).  Rohan did play really well on a table with his trucks and planes, and when we got our bags back, the armed guards were back out to restore order (this being the 3rd day most people were stuck).  We talked to a couple gun toters and they were super nice again, even joking around with us.  We headed back to London after Josh found us another hotel, a Comfort Inn, right next to Victoria Station, on Buckingham Palace Rd.  A Very nice area.  We lucked out again and 2 police officers pointed us in the right direction since we started heading the wrong way.  Our room was very nice, but we were hungry, so we headed out to find a pub or grocery, but it was 11:00pm, and Europe shuts down early.  We ended up getting a Chicken Tikka sandwich at a train station kiosk called Upper Crust...it was surprisingly good, but at 12:30am anything would have been...:)  Mara even found a balloon on the ground for Rohan (best parents ever, we know).  Josh, being our saviour again, was able to rebook us to the country of Luxembourg (since Frankfurt was shut down until the 27th!!!).  Both are about 90 min from his house so it worked either way.  This time we were flying our of our 3rd airport, Gatwick, which was ~45 miles south of London.  We took a shower in the awesome shower at our hotel, and got a great nights sleep!
December 21st brought rain, but no snow!  We didn't fly out until 6:30pm so we had the whole day again, and the rain wasn't going to stop us!  We grabbed some continental breakfast and headed out to explore the Westminster/Belgravia neighborhoods of London.  We first hit up a coffee shop (of course) which we found the previous night scouring for food.  The Belgravia Sandwich Bar loved Rohan too, and he was charming them the whole time. We ended up walking ALL over Lower Westminster, past quaint parks and townhouse mansions, and even through a UN Embassy/Consulate row. Before we left we ate at one more Indian restaurant called Spicy World.  We caught a 30min train ride to London Gatwick Airport, through the UK countryside. We had a sick feeling when our plane was delayed a couple times, even though the weather was fine, just raining, but only slightly above freezing.  Most flights were leaving, but some were cancelled, so it left us uneasy.  Amazingly, we were able to take off and land in Luxembourg less than an hour later...that's right...4 days in London waiting for a flight that took less than an hour.
Josh was awesome and drove in dense fog to come pick us up.  Rohan DOVE at him as soon as Josh was close.  I think 4 days with M&D were enough...  We got back around 12:00am on Dec. 21st and ate like kings at their place.  Debora had chili and tons of other food for us.  We stayed up until almost 6:00am catching up and recanting the blog post above.  Hope you enjoyed this part of the journey...there is still a TON more to come...:)
While we weren't anticipating a 4 day layover in London, we felt like we explored the city as more than just tourists.  We were really happy to have the time to dive into cafés and pubs off the beaten path.

Rohan being a trooper while waiting in line for 12 hours:


Rohan's Gift From The Indian Restaurant:


Rohan showing off his talking skills:


Rohan giving money to the orchestra trio at Whitley's:


Rohan following the model train at the Museum of Childhood: