London -- Day 5

When spent 4 days traveling all over London and thoroughly enjoying ourselves, but today is the day we've all been waiting for!  It's really too bad (sometimes) that we have to be so cheap, because it really cost us last night...SEVERELY!  The room we stayed in was so small...probably the smallest I've ever stayed in.  I don't believe that Europe even knows what a queen sized bed is, much less a king.  They definitely don't know what comfortable beds are like either.  There are a few things that the Europeans could learn from us lazy Americans :)

Anyway, our room was ultra small!  And then you added us and our luggage...now your talking about major claustrophobia.  I wished I was being funny, but I'm not.  We had to take numbers as to who would move when because there wasn't room for two people to move at one time.   The hotel was on a busy street and we went to bed with lots of street noise in the background.  Ok, I'll be honest here: I did get some sleep, exactly 3 hours!  I woke up to water running down my face.  I have to confess that I first thought it was drool that must have flown from Brent's mouth to my face because I just don't sweat!  I opened my eyes to further examine the situation and realized that poor Brent isn't drooling at all.  It's HOT and I'm sweating!  My fussy side immediately presents itself to Brent and wakes him up to ask him if he is hot?  Why did I bother to ask?  When I look to my right and my left everyone is out of their covers!  Oh, I bet you don't think I can really see, huh?  Well you're wrong because we are on that busy street.  Remember? And that busy street also has some very good lights, which seem to work even better after midnight.  Back to waking Brent up.... he is such a good sport and tells me to call the front desk and tell them that the AC isn't working.  In the meantime Brent gets up and gets a wet towel and throws in on me.  Wow!  Relief.  He then gets dressed and heads downstairs to have a little conversation with the gentlemen at the desk.  He comes back with a 2 liter bottle of water and 2 large glasses of ice.  Yep, he is my knight in shining armor.  Mr. Gentlemen at the front desk, who told me on the phone that he couldn't do anything has now told Brent that he'll come take a look.  When you're hot time seems to crawl!  It took him forever and when he did get there all he did was inspect the thermostat.  I have to assume that he thought we were ignorant Americans that didn't know how to operate one!  Once he did his inspection and realized that we did indeed have it set like it should be, he said, "Sorry, we don't have maintenance man at night." Man, oh man!  We have to stay in this sauna for several more hours?  Then, we remembered the window!  My poor children... I had to crawl over them to reach the window and open it.  We thought we heard traffic noise earlier....not sure what that was because now we heard traffic noise.  But, we were slowing changing the temperature in the room.  We laid there until we couldn't take the noise any longer and then shut the window and resumed the wet towel approach. 

Morning finally dawned!  We had the girls get out of bed, which was a sleeper sofa.  (In America we would call it a twin sized sleeper, not a double.) We were able to move a little more freely once we acquired that additional 10 square feet.  Brent spent more time in the hallway than he did in the room while he was awake.  We women can take a lot of time getting dressed :) We drug our suitcases to the lobby with anticipation of the same awesome English breakfast that we had the previous 3 morning.  What a disappointment.  Everything was awful....and I'm not picky!  I typically enjoy Holiday Inn Express, but this was definitely not what I'm used to.

The night before Brent had decided that we would hire a cab to take us to the Waterloo station.  We were able to arrange one that said they could fit all 8 bags and us in one vehicle.  It is so cold and rainy and I am so thankful that Brent insisted that we splurge this one time in hiring transportation.  We would have spent more money on Starbucks trying to get warm had we walked! It was too funny when the driver saw all of our luggage, you could tell his wheels were turning!  The taxi was a mini van, but small.  With Brent's incredible packing skills we were able to fit most of the bags in the back, and the rest rode on our laps.  After getting loaded Brent ran around and opened the passenger side door, or better yet what would be the passenger side door in American.  The driver was right behind him and started laughing and told Brent that if he really wanted to drive that he'd let him.  Brent scurried around to his side and we were off to Waterloo!



We arrived at the station at 8:00 and our train was scheduled to depart at 8:39.  The station is the largest in the UK and I was told second largest in the world, but I've been unable to verify that.  Thousands of people use it to commute everyday.  Since we have no idea of where we are supposed to go, I think Brent started sweating the minute we walked in the station.   He was a NERVOUS wreck!  Most of you all know how intense Brent can get, well multiply that by about 10 and you'll have a better idea of how he was doing on the morning of Nov 23rd.  It is pouring rain outside and the roof isn't the best I've ever seen and it is raining in the station as well.  Did I mention that it was cold?  The girls we so cold that Brent left me with the luggage watching the boards on the wall which are suppose to indicate which platform we are to get on, while he took the girls to buy scarves.



Thought you all would love to see our luggage!



This is a small part of the station. 

I stood there studying those boards, but I didn't not understand what was going on at all.  I finally asked a young girl in front of me and she was so kind as to explain the process to me.  Brent returned with the girls and then took our tickets and went to talk to someone.  He returned to motion us through the carousel for handicapped people, there was just no way we were going to be able to make it through the turn-style everyone else was using.  We make it through the gates just as a train has just deposited thousands of people!  I'm sure that is an exaggeration, but I've never seen so many people get off  train. It was  like watching clowns getting out of their car at a rodeo!



People, people and more people!

I was pulling my luggage and minding my own business and some chic turned around and yelled at me.  She said that I almost knocked her over.  Of course being the polite American I am, I apologized.  Later replaying it in my head I realized that if she almost got knocked over it was because she wasn't watching where she was going, because I was simply moving with the flow of traffic!    We walked and walked, and kept asking what platform we need to go to and nobody knew where we should go.  Finally we were informed that we need to go back and wait on the other side.  Back through the handicap gate we go to wait on the other side once again watching the boards.  We only waited for a few minutes and  then we saw our train was assigned a platform.  Once again, we went back through the handicap gate and off to our train.  This is what was so funny!  Brent walks up to the door and starts to pickup his luggage and the door closes in his face.  He was instantly furious!  I saw the next car down still had its door open so we headed down there.  We were able to get on without too much trouble, but then I got to thinking.... I did a lot of research and bought these train tickets a long time ago.  Very discounted... remember we're cheap!  Anyhow, when I purchased them it said to make sure you are on the MegaTrain and there should be a place card in the window indicating that you're on the right train.  After inspecting the windows I don't see any place cards.  I tell Brent, who immediately panics and jumps off the train to ask someone if we are indeed on the right train.  They assure him that we are.  PHEW!  We get all of our luggage situated and find a seat.  Now, that was an ordeal!    We were probably halfway to Southampton, our destination, before Brent was able to relax enough so that he could enjoy his trip.  I wasn't as uptight as he was, but I don't feel the responsibility that he does either. It's so nice to be the wife!



A Southwest Train



They were very nice on the inside and after we ordered hot tea and coffee we settled in. Blair took a nap, but somehow that picture disappeared from my camera, along with a few others that just happened to have her in them!

Now, when I said cheap, I meant cheap. We traveled from London to Southampton, which is 1.5 hours away and we only had to pay 1 lb person.  1 pound while we were there was about $1.70.

When we arrived in Southampton we take out on foot to find the ship. It was a great walk, and only about 1 mile! We all needed the exercise and it was fun to haul around 80lbs. It was good for us, I promise I'm not complaining. I really did enjoy it!  It would have cost us about 40 dollars and we wouldn't have had the privilege of burning so many calories. See, being cheap does have its benefits!

We made it to the ship and we were so happy that we were finally there! Check-in was a breeze and we were off to find some food. Breakfast, or the lack thereof, was a LONG time ago.  We each enjoyed a delicious lunch, the girls were instructed(by mom and dad) that their meals had to include a vegetable and fruit, and we set off to explore the ship.

We relaxed the rest of the day in anticipation of our trip to Paris tomorrow.