Wednesday, the last morning in London

[fenchurch]

Our last morning in London was pretty uneventful... we had breakfast at the restaurant attached to our hotel (Premier Travel Inn in Kenton), did one last check of email only to find out that sometime in the night our servers had gone down. So, out to hotmail to email the friends who had been watching our cats to see if they could powercycle servers and the modem when they woke up in the morning in Seattle, hoping that would fix the problem.

We'd repacked everything and ended up keeping the pillows we bought in London, but dumping the one we'd brought with us (it was quite old), then headed out... discovering to our surprise that we were practically across the street from a fairly large Sainsbury's. Bonus! We picked up a few Quality Street Selections tins (which were even on sale!) to bring back for friends... kinda wishing now that we'd grabbed one for ourselves too, and a few more bits of chocolate. I also snagged two copies of the Radio Times with the Torchwood cover. Squee!!!

Then we were off to Brent Cross Shopping Centre, where we wandered around for a little bit and picked up some sandwiches for lunch at Marks and Spencers. What can I say, they're addictive! I decided to go with my second favorite and got the Ploughman's -- apparently, I really do just like cheese and pickle sandwiches! Then up to W.H.Smith's where we finally found a copy of Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones! They only had one left (they hadn't had any when we'd checked there a week or so earlier). At the very least, we did enough stuff that morning to feel like we justified the day (otherwise, what's the point in paying for another night in a hotel, if you're just going to get up and go to the airport?).

We really had no troubles reaching Heathrow, and we'd planned the timing well... so we weren't too horribly early, but still had lots of leeway for potential problems. Checking in was a breeze, security was swift, and then we were out in the concourse... filled with duty free shops. Yay! We may have bought a bit more chocolate, we definitely bought a bit of water to tide us over until the flight and we wandered around the DVD store to see if there was anything we wanted to grab sans tax and shipping. And then over to the bookshop where I found the Doctor Who 3-D Model Making Kit. So, so cool! I can't wait to assemble the cute miniature TARDIS!

Long flight home on a very packed airplane... neither of us got more than tiny little cat naps. The food was MUCH better coming from the UK than it had been coming from the US (no big surprise). I watched the movie "Over the Hedge" which was funny, but I don't think I need to get a copy on DVD. It was daylight for the entire flight (we were chasing the sun around the globe), so we got a really good view of Greenland. I could kick myself though, because I hadn't packed the camera anywhere I could reach it easily, or I'd have some really fantastic pictures.

Interestingly, when we were going through customs in the US it sounded like chocolate was the number one thing people were declaring. Of course, we also had a few bags of crisps (which had the agent laughing a bit).

taradaktyl's husband picked us up from the airport in my car and we dropped him off at his place on the way home, with me driving the few blocks to our house... mostly because, while both Rackham and I were exhausted, I hadn't been driving on the other side of the road for the past week. It still felt weird, though, and I found myself having a brief moment of confusion when I'd turn onto a new road. Not that I tried to drive on the left side, but more that for just a few seconds I wasn't sure I was on the right side. Very strange.

We ordered lasagna and salad from Pagliacci Pizza... the one thing about the food we ate in England, it was surprisingly lacking in garlic! But having the stuff delivered meant we could put off having to drive anywhere to go shopping. mekle stopped by on his way home from work and drove Rackham over to That Computer Store I Hate to get a new power supply for the dead server (having determined that was the most likely culprit for our problems). We *never* shop at TCSIH, to give you an idea of how exhausted we were... it happens to be very close, but I'm still really glad Mekle was willing to do the driving. It wasn't safe for either of us to be on the road.

I managed to stay awake until almost 10:00pm, but it wasn't easy.

Comments

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

It's CompUSA. They occasionally have good prices on things when they have sales, but their employees are universally horrible. Beyond clueless. Even though they're just up the road from us, unless we're desperate, we'll usually drive the half or so it takes to get to Fry's Electronics down in Renton.

[pmgoose.livejournal.com]

Really? I'll keep that in mind.

I have a Fry's nearby, too.