here are some daily snippets from our trip...
july 14
this was departure day. very exciting, considering the months of planning and organization. because our adventure was 3 weeks long, i had a lot to do at work in advance - i managed to finish everything on my to-do list, and on time too. this is a nice feeling! our flight left at 8:40pm this day, so we left for the airport shortly after 5:15pm. our travelling companions and close friends, karlene and brian, had a contact who suggested he could upgrade us to first class. we were wishing this could happen as we were flying overnight and wouldn't see another bed until july 16. unfortunately, the upgrade didn't happen, but the individual tv screens helped. also, because it was an international flight, a meal and free alcohol was included. the red wine looked like cheap imitation soy sauce on first glance, but wasn't half bad. i was the only one out of everyone to manage to get some sleep, and i only got a few hours at that. we were in good spirits and very excited, so this was okay with us...
july 15
we arrived at london heathrow airport at around 8:30am. a bit bleary-eyed, we took on the city to do some sight-seeing. we didn't get very far as our exhaustion quickly took over, but not before we were able to do a few requisite england activities - we saw trafalgar square, rode the tube, got rained on, almost got ran over on several occasions because we forgot everything is backwards there (traffic, right-of-way, etc. etc.), ate fish and chips (with beer) and later steak and kidney pie (with beer). we made our way to stansted airport outside london to catch a flight to rome. the flight didn't leave until 6am on july 16, but we had to be there by 4am, and trains to this airport don't run all night long. thus, we made our way there, ate dinner, then hunkered down for the night. this involved arranging our bags in such a way that no one would be able to or want to steal them (we used a wire lock to connect them all together, so to steal one, you would need to lift 4 heavy backpacks full of 3 weeks' worth of clothing - no one tried to take them, which was slightly disappointing). we slept on the floor of this airport while the night-time cleaning staff mopped around us. i discovered they sell crispy m&m's in england, so i bought some and of course, had to take a picture of the five of us:
sleeping on the floor seemed to be common practice as there were hundreds of people doing the same, and at times, it looked like a violent crime scene:
here, i was also able to rhyme "france" with "underpants," much to my delight. i only wish i could remember the context and what exactly it was that i said...this is what happens when you're in a tired stupor, you say hilarious things, but can't remember the details of the hilarity afterwards...sigh.
