The Watkins Adventures!: Spring Break 2012: London!

The trip started out great! We were on time (maybe a tad early) to the airport...things going great...we remembered to bring Flat Caden. And then it started...our travel luck or, bad luck, as the case may be. They announced that our flight originally scheduled to leave at 10:55pm was now going to leave at 1:55am. Because we had a connecting flight in Istanbul at 1:55am, this was not a good turn of events for us. We sat there patiently for a while before I mustered the energy (if you've ever had to deal with Arabs at an airport you would understand this statement) to go up and ask what was to happen to those of us missing connecting flights. We were told that the "manager" was coming and that all would be well. When the manager finally showed up it was dangerously close to our take off time so I started getting nervous. He offered us two choices: to fly to Istanbul and stay overnight in Turkish Airlines airport hotel and leave the next day; or, fly to Istanbul, connect to Amsterdam, switch to a KLM flight and get to Manchester 5-6 hours after originally scheduled. We chose the latter....not sure why, but we did.

From that decision on it was kind of a mess. We made it to Istanbul with what we THOUGHT was enough time to catch our connecting flight to Amsterdam...until we saw the transfer desk line. It was literally 4 hours long and everybody knows what happens in lines in Middle Eastern countries (yes, I know Istanbul is technically part of the EU, but once you go there you'll understand my statement)....LINE CUTTERS. So, mix together line cutters and a bunch of angry Europeans and what do you get??? YEP! A fight. Fortunately for US, we had a FRONT row seat to the event as the line cutter and the angry Scotsman who thwarted his efforts with the threat of violence and the frequently used "F" word were standing behind us! Ahhhh, good times. Even worse was when a Turkish Air official came to the back of said four hour long line to ask who was going to Amsterdam and then promptly moved all ten of us with our hands raised to the very front of the line. You can imagine that we were the most hated people in the room for those 20-30 minutes that it took to get us on our not so merry way!

We get on the flight to Amsterdam after a few more delays and we get to Schipol Airport with 30 minutes to make our connecting flight. If you have ever been to the Schipol Airport you will understand that that is virtually impossible. Soooo we get off our Turkish Air flight and start RUNNING through the airport to the other side in order to catch our connecting flight to Manchester. Unfortunately for Janie, she was wearing 5 inch heels and, while she looked fashionable, they were not very functional. We left her in the dust sad to say. We literally made it to the gate as they were boarding the plane. We were out of breath and sweaty. Ugh.

Three short hours later...or something like that...we make it to Manchester but, unfortunately, our luggage did not make it with us. We promptly filed a claim and caught a cab to my sisters house. We were tired and hungry.

The next day two of the bags show up at my sister's house...no warning, no calls, no nothing...they just were delivered. Of course one was Janie's (if you know "the charmed one" you will understand why SHE got her bag first) and the other bag was Madeline's carry on with little in it, but that she decided to check at the last minute in Saudi. The next day John's bag got delivered. Madeline and I were out of luck. So this was the beginning of the lost baggage saga. Needless to say, we did NOT receive our bags for the entire 10 days we were in London.

It was so nice to see my sister, Suzette, and Lee. We had a good time eating, talking, shopping, etc. We spent 3 days with them. One day we took the train out to Liverpool to see the Beatles Experience. It was a corny little museum, but we liked it. We drove around and saw a few things and then went to the Cavern Club where the Quarrymen and then the Beatles first played. It was a nice piece of music history. There was a musician performing Beatles songs, of course. We signed our names on the wall. It was neat.

On the 5th of April we loaded up and took the train to London...we were happy that two bags were still lost at this point. Taking the train with 5 bags and two carry-ons is no small feat.

London was freezing cold and it rained 3 or 4 of the 7 days we were there, but all in all the weather was pretty nice. Fortunately for us, we had our winter coats in our carry on bags so we were good there. We did have to spend a good 3-4 days shopping for stuff to wear. We kept buying only one or two outfits thinking that our bags would show up and when they didn't we would have to go shopping again.

We saw Buckingham Palace, the changing of the guards, Hyde Park, The Tower of London, Parliament, museums, Camden Markets, Platform 9 3/4, Harrod's, West End, etc. Easter Sunday we went out to Speaker's Corner to listen to the crazies yell. It is a place where on Sundays people go out and just rant and rave and others heckle. My kids loved it. It was cold and raining, but fun.

We shopped...a LOT. I ran in to an old high school friend, Michelle Holt Messer, and her husband and we had a nice time of dinner and drinks. We went to see a play on West End called "All New People" written by Zach Braff. He was also starring in it so we were excited. It was a great play. I thought that it was evident on stage that Zach wasn't an experienced theater actor, but no one else was of this opinion. The next day we saw the musical Rock of Ages and it was incredible. I thought it was going to be so dumb, but it was funny and fun and I really enjoyed it. I would like to see it on Broadway as well.

Even without the luxury of our luggage, I have to say that it was one of our better vacations. We missed Alison, but her spring break was a few weeks ahead of ours. She spent her spring break in London with her Shakespeare class!