Sunday turned to Monday somewhere over the Atlantic as we flew east across eight time zones. Dinner was pretty disgusting and sleeping was almost impossible for me sitting on the plane, but Amber was able to sleep by curling up on her seat and resting her head on my lap, so it wasn’t so bad for everyone – one of the advantages of being so small.  I tried to get a little sleep as well but never really succeeded.

We touched down at around 7:00 a.m. local time, which is 11:00 p.m. Phoenix time, with a combination of excitement and exhaustion. We found our way to the trains that run between Gatwick airport and London and I was grateful to confirm that my credit card worked. Not that it would have been that hard to get some local currency, but even little things that wouldn’t be that hard to do normally are a lot harder when you’re really tired. Add to that the fact that you’re in a strange city and a foreign country and it makes it even tougher. We planned to fly into London first partly so that we would start in a country that speaks English, but still even familiar things are a little different. And then add to that a little pressure that everyone naturally feels to want everything to go smoothly, and the first day or so in a foreign country far from home can be very precarious. If everything goes right, fine, but if anything goes wrong, its hard to deal with.

The train we took into London was a commuter train, and was absolutely packed with rush hour traffic of natives headed to work. It took us a while to figure out where to stash our bags and we had to stand for the thirty minute ride into town. We barely avoided a catastrophe when I remembered at the last second after we left the train that my bag – with passports and train tickets – was still on board.  Thankfully, I had time to grab it. 

Once at Victoria station, we got some pounds and then decided to walk to our hotel. We walked across Hyde park and then a few blocks into west end.  We were very tired, so what should have been a pleasant walk was more of an ordeal. But we found our hotel, Tony’s Hotel, one of about a dozen hotels that all overlook a green little park with huge Sycamore trees called Norfolk Square. 

We had to wait to check in for a couple of hours so we found a little hotel diner at the end of the street and had breakfast. By this point we had been awake for almost 24 hours straight and it was all we could do to stay awake. I passed around the iPad and asked everyone to record their first impressions:

My first impression of Europe is . . .

Amber:  all the different countries and that I learned that in London they speak English with an accent.I am very very very cold I want to go to sleep. I am very FREEZING COLD!!!:-(

Phyllis: I’m so tired but so far dirty and COLD!!!

Kaitlin: hungry and tired I was really cold to!

Judy:  jet lag ,will try again tomorrow!!!

Chris: double-decker red busses.

We left the diner and sat a while in the park, where Phyllis and the girls fell asleep on a park bench and I dozed in the grass.

We finally got into our room – which was pretty spare and junky, but which had great window doors that opened onto a little balcony overlooking the park. Despite our best intentions of wanting to stay awake until the evening, we all dropped into bed and slept, not even remembering to take the key from the door.