We're here!

Heather: We had a very easy drive to the Charlotte airport and checked in with plenty of time to go get dinner (Bar B Q!).

Raquelle: Dad is a member of the Chairman's Preferred Whatever-Mucky-Muck and has access to The Club. That meant we had a nice place to lounge around and eat snacks and generally pester each other. The lady at The Club frowned at Dad for bringing his family AND two guests (Grandma and Gramps). She said you could only do ONE or the OTHER, even though another clerk had told Dad a different story earlier.

"Well," said Dad, "they are all family!"

"Family is children 18 and under," she scowled.

Which was innocuous enough, but what it meant that, since she made no objection to Heather and I, she thought that we looked under 18. :D Which was probably quite true. We were wearing cute little plaid jumpers and sturdy sensible shoes and altogether looking very homeschoolerish and schweet. I found it amusing.

However, the lady magnanimously granted us an exception and let us ALL come into the club.

Heather: The flight itself went smoothly also, although we all felt it was too LONG!

Raquelle: Which is the World's Most Collossal Understatement.

Heather: We landed at 8:30 am and then spent a couple hours getting our luggage, taking the train into London and getting checked into our hotel. Fortunately, even though we arrived early, our rooms were ready for us after we finished eating lunch.

Then the debate started. Should we go sightseeing, take a walk, or take a nap? The naps won by default: Everyone fell asleep! Literally, Mom, Raquelle and I were dozing while waiting on the check for lunch. Grandma and Gramps couldn't keep their eyes open either. Dad, in fact, was the only one who slept the whole night on the plane.

So, we all took naps. And THEN we went sightseeing! As an easy first-day activity, we just did a bus tour of London. We sat on the top deck of the bus so our view was unobstructed and we could get some fresh air (much needed after 7 hours on the plane). We took pictures of all the famous sights like Big Ben, Tower of London, Houses of Parliament and such. We'll hopefully get them uploaded tomorrow.

The tour finished up, leaving us on Baker Street. We all were ravenously hungry and decided after a quick walk up the block to eat at the nearest restaurant: a french pizza parlour. We were taken to the lowest flour (below the street) and there were plants and flowers blooming and the doors were open. It's a nice, seasonable 70 degrees here. So we all had pizza and ice cream and felt much better!

Raquelle: The French have no idea how to do pizza. We ordered the "classic" pizza as opposed to the "Romana" pizza, which the waitress explained had a very thin crust. Right. Well, if Romana is thin, I wonder what under the canopy it looks like because the Classic was about as thin as, say, a knife blade. :D :D

Heather: Then, by way of working off the ice cream, we decided to walk for a while. I really wanted to walk up to 221B Baker Street, which is where Sherlock Holmes supposedly lived. However, when we got there, the entire building was covered in scaffolding. I was disappointed, but we decided to cross the street so I could at least get a better look at the building. Turns out, "221B" Baker Street is actually several houses up the street! Yup, there was "Sherlock Holmes' office" right there! We took pictures of it, which we will also upload tomorrow.

Then we road the tube to a couple blocks from our hotel and walked the rest of the way. It's only 8:30 pm but we're exhausted and intend to crash into bed. I just hope my body decides to sleep, even though it's not "sleep time" in South Carolina!

So... for tonight, over and out from the Weary World Travelers.