The Adventure Begins…

Deetria came over last night and shared her stories of her recent Ohio trip with me while I packed… We had a nice visit, and she spoiled Vern and I with wine, and a large tray of sushi and other goodies. She ended up crashing with me, as she had had two glasses of wine, and probably was just over the limit to drive.

As I’d left my packing to the last minute, and still hadn’t had a shower or finished off my work for the night, I didn’t actually get to sleep until past 2am, and then promptly woke at 3 as I wasn’t used to sleeping on the wrong side of the bed (I was sharing with Dee). I ended up watching the news until 4:30 and had to be up at 7am for work. Needless to say, I was pretty tired this morning.

I ended up working until 2pm, at which time I cut off my clients’ requests for last minute nagging issues, and headed off to grab the last of the little things that I needed for the trip at London Drugs.

Vern dropped off Jeremy and I at the airport mid-afternoon, Vancouver time, which got us to British Air’s check-in counter about 3 hours before our flight was scheduled to leave. We’d planned on arriving early in the off chance we could get an upgrade to our seats. Although we didn’t get the upgrade we were hoping for, we did get the bulkhead/exit row seat position that was helpful for keeping us comfortable during the 9.5 hour flight. The flight left about 5 minutes late, which was astounding as they didn’t start loading the sold-out p0lane until 7:20pm (Our flight was to leave at 7:50pm).

You know, all in all, I was extremely impressed with my experience during those long hours on the 747. Everyone had their own tv screens, they served booze gratis, and the seats weren’t half bad. That said, I wouldn’t have wanted to be one of the cattle behind us with zero leg room to stretch out in during such a long flight. I could literally stretch my legs out and barely touch the wall in front of us, where we were seated. It was well worth the few hours of extra time spent at the airport for that!

Speaking of the hours spent at the hairport… I thing we did it right! We went for Japanese food for dinner and then went on the “Great Pop Tart Hunt” as I wasn’t sure I could get some in England. I always travel with a box in hand, just in case I’m stuck somewhere without food that I enjoy for breakfast. It’s always surned out to be a good idea… After finding some Pop Tarts at 7-11 on the domestic side of the airport, we headed for a spa-type splace to have a pedicure. What a way to start a vacation, I say! How relaxing my 45 minute pedicure was… A delightful pleasure that I couldn’t believe that Jer didn’t partake in as well. He elected to do some exploring while I enjoyed my ‘AbsoluteSpa’ experience. Just as well, probably, as he would have been bored to tears with the conversation between the esthetician and myself, anyhow.

We arrived at Heathrow at about 2:30 London time (I’d already been up 22 hours at this point, with 3 hours of sleep before that), and went to Avis to pick up our car for the trip. We then made our way to Stubbington (A town in Fareham) which is about 45 minutes outside of Portsmouth. After getting a little lost, we finally arrived at Jeremy’s Aunt and Uncle’s place at about 6pm. Eilene made us a fantastic dinner… Which I really needed at6 that point as I hadn’t eaten since the flight.

Then, as I was so beyond tired at that point, we all headed off to a local pub for some bitters and had a laugh at their “Quiz Night” which was surprisingly humourous.

We finally headed to bed at 10:45pm… which meant I’d been up for over 31 hours on 3 hours sleep. ZOIKS! I was the waking dead when I fell into bed!

It’s definitely a great start to my England adventure!