Summer Vacation: Day 0 & 1: LA to London

After a hard year at school and almost 6 weeks separated from my fam, we packed up and headed out for a family vacation! Covid cancelations meant that we all had wanderlust, so we're starting out celebrating S's parents' 50th anniversary in England and Spain! Stay tuned to this page - I'll post updates here. Mostly it's a travel journal for me, but it's also nice to share what's happening. 

H and I got up at 5am on Monday morning to start to acclimate to British time. We took a morning walk in the nature preserve to get our blood pumping. 

When we finished up packing and got to the airport, we discovered that the airline wouldn't let us check into our flight. We had done our online checkin and had boarding passes, but a glitch in the computer made it looked like I bought two tickets for myself (which is a no-no). We had about 15 minutes of not knowing what was happening (the clerks at LAX weren't communicating well with either us or each other, and when S got on the phone with Delta/Virgin customer service, the hold time meant that she wouldn't get service until after our flight took off. Fortunately, a little bit of assertiveness paid off, and a genius-bar-level clerk helped get us sorted. 

 Through security, onto the plane! I think it was the first time traveling Premium class (which is not-quite-first but still pretty fancy) for us. 

The flight was fine. Service was good. Sleep was hard to come by. S got 3 hours. I got around 4. H got 6-ish. But, we all made it safe and sound to Heathrow and then to our flat in Pimlico. 

Our trio was the first to arrive, and we got into town before the housekeeping staff had the flat ready. We stowed our bags and then went for a nice Italian lunch (O Sole Mio) in a nearby shopping/dining area. I asked H if Italian food sounded good to her, and she asked if she had ever had it. I told her what kind of foods that entailed (spaghetti, meatballs, ravioli, lasagna, artichokes, etc.) and she quickly deduced that she did, in fact, love Italian food. She had spaghetti and meatballs, and while she was exhausted, she declared the day one of the best days ever.  After lunch we went to St. George's Square while we waited for B/A/O to get in from Heathrow. 

Once they arrived, we settled into the flat. H and O had a great time playing, and the grownups got a chance to put our feet up. We ate dinner at 5.30, the girls were asleep by 7.30, and the adults started moving towards bed at 8 ish. C/D arrive tomorrow, and the fun'll really get going! 

On the cab ride from the airport, H and I started a LIST OF THINGS THAT ARE DIFFERENT BETWEEN LONDON AND CALIFORNIA. Here are today's additions: 

• money shape/color/currency 
• driving on the other side of the road 
• accents 
• steering wheel on the other side of the car 
• age of the city