Sheep Guarding Llama

The latter portion of our long flight over the pond went decently smoothly.  After much cajoling both Liesl and Luciana managed to fall asleep.  Liesl slept on my lap while Luciana slept in the makeshift bassinette that British Airlines provides for smaller children.   That gave them a few hours of sleep each and even Dominica got a wink or two in.  No sleep for me, between having to brace my foot high on the bulkhead for hours to support Liesl in a comfortable position and being unable to turn over or recline there was no real way for me to sleep.

Eventually, once I got into a position where I could do it, I brought up the on board entertainment system and attempted to watch a movie.  Sadly, the movie turned itself off about every three minutes so I never managed to finish the film as it took several hours to watch an hour and a half long film.  It was the sequel to Johnny English.  I didn’t even know that Rowan Atkinson had made a sequel.  Sometime when I am back in Texas I will look for it as I want to see it now.

We landed in London early in the morning, around seven local time or one in the morning according to our internal clocks.  The flight had been good with plenty of food and wine.  Even the cheapest seats on British Airways get a bottle of wine.  BA knows what they are doing.

Going through border control for the UK was going to be a nightmare.  The line had easy one to two thousand people in it and snaked through the entire section of the airport.  It was easily going to take hours to work our way through it.  Thankfully, after just a few minutes in the cramped line, Luciana got an attack of “stranger danger” which we assume was triggered through a combination of people being packed in like sardines on every side (so close that people were constantly jostling), it being a bit warm, her exhaustion from the flight and her sensing that her parents were a little stressed dealing with the line, luggage and all of the people, she began to scream… scream like the Dickens (which is what a proper little girl scream like when in England.)

It took about thirty seconds of Luciana screams before UK border control agents pulled us out of the one to two hour long line and whisked us directly to a waiting “emergency” border control checkpoint and basically waived us through.  It was amazing.  So much time saved.  Luciana totally saved the day on this one.

We were able to get our luggage long before anyone else from our flight was evening thinking about walking down to baggage claim.  We  got there right as our bags came out of the “chute” so we were able to just grab them and go!

We opted to not take the expensive Heathrow Express train but took the very cheap tube instead which took a little over an hour to transport us from Heathrow to London’s St. Pancras rail station (which sits across the street from the recently made more famous King’s Cross Station of Harry Potter fame – we actually took the tube to King’s Cross (or KingsX as it is written in shorthand) and then walked over to St. Pancras.)  The tube journey, being that this was a Sunday morning, was very relaxed – nothing like taking the tube during rush hour.  We enjoyed having the time to sit and talk with Liesl and explain that we were in England.

The weather is perfect – a truly glorious day in London.  The sun was bright and warm.  This is London like we have never seen it.

We got to St. Pancras and miraculously there was a train just about to depart for Nottingham.  So we grabbed the ten o’clock train and without even having enough time to grab coffee… we were off to our final destination.  Luciana not only make border control more convenient but saved us from being stuck on a noon or, most likely, one o’clock train.  The aftereffects of her screaming saved us certainly two hours and very possibly three hours!

The train ride up to Nottingham was cramped and we were pretty exhausted.  Dominica gave Liesl the first of the secret My Little Ponies that she had stowed away to surprise Liesl with during the trip to keep her happy.  This one was Twilight Sparkly or something like that.  Liesl was very excited about that and it kept her happy on the train.

We ended up making some friends on the train and Liesl and I actually went and sat with them and discussed the weather and traveling in the East Midlands.  They said that the region has had the wettest April in recorded British history and so it was truly amazing that we were here for such amazing weather.

We got to Nottingham, got some British cash from the station’s ATM and set out walking through town looking for our apartment.  The walk was a hard one with a lot of hills and tough cobblestone and uneven sidewalks.  We have so much luggage to carry that it really hurt going as far as we did.  We were exhausted and soar when we finally made it to the apartment.  Then the challenge of figuring out how to get in – although that ended up going smoothly without any real issues,

The apartment is awesome.  Dominica did an amazing job finding this place.  We have a two bedroom, one and a half bath serviced apartment on the eleventh floor (that’s twelfth floor to Americans) with great views of Nottingham.  The place is spacious, has laundry inside the apartment, a full kitchen, a nice dining area, a comfortable living room and a nice balcony.  Liesl loved it when we opened up the balcony and she could just go out there on her own to play.

We got settled in and almost immediately Huw came over.  Dominica and the girls decided to stay in while Huw and I went out for a bit. So Huw set off to give me a quick overview of town – an overview of the punk rocker pub sites.  So I got a firsthand punk rock tour of one of England’s big punk rock cities from a punk rocker and I got introduced all over town.

We started at the Old Angel right by the apartment and went to about six pubs including The Royal Children, The Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem and Foreman’s.  One is famous for being frequented by, well, the children of royals hundreds of years ago, one for being the oldest pub in the whole of England with much of the pub carved out of solid rock in the castle wall and one for being the smallest pub in Nottingham.  We also hit another pub that competes with the Jerusalem for the title of oldest pub.

It was amazing to see the history of Nottingham through the pubs.  The Ye Olde Jerusalem pub might be one of the coolest places that I have ever been. This pub was used as a stopping off point for English troops en route to the third crusade.  The pub was built in 1189 – the year that the third crusade kicked off.  It was also amazing that not just one but several people knew Huw at each and every pub that we went to.

I also was very excited to kick off my time in England with a huge selection of cask ales.  I probably had six pints on my first day!

After we did our pub crawl we went looking for fish and chips to bring home to Dominica and the girls but because it was Sunday evening every British business was closed.  We found this same problem a few years ago when Dominica and I were last in the UK.  So instead we hunted down an awesome little Turkish restaurant and got Turkish veggie burgers to take back.  The burgers were amazing.

So Huw dropped me off (we walked all over town but took a cab back to the apartment to get home quickly) and his wife picked him up and took him home and I went up to deliver food to the girls.  We ate and were in bed pretty quickly after that.  Already Liesl is really enjoying the British television shows and the new variety here.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.  It is my one day in Nottingham so we are going to try to see a lot of things but we are going to be pretty tired as the jet lag is going to take a while to wear off.

икона за подаръкWe got up early this morning having gotten way too little sleep and we were out the door around eight.  This is it, we are really off to Europe.  I can’t believe it.  We don’t sleep until we are in our serviced apartment in Nottingham, England!  That is a bizarre thought.  Scary too considering how far away that is in terms of both time and distance.

Dominica, dad and I drove up to the Peppermint Too in Henrietta to meet Dominica’s parents for breakfast.  We ate there and then dad dropped us off at the Rochester airport.

We got into the airport and got our first real taste of just how much work it was going to be to lug so much luggage around (hence the term, I imagine) and it is not going to be fun at all.  Dominica does an amazing job of packing lightly but even so this is no picnic.  We have so much stuff.  Two massive rolling bags, a huge duffle bag, the kid carrier, the backpack that goes onto the kid carrier, Liesl’s bumblebee backpack and the stroller.  Painful is putting it lightly.  There are only the two of us to carry all of that plus carrying the children as well.

Just as we went into the security line I noticed Stacy working at American Airlines’ desk so we stopped over just for a minute to say hi to her.

Security at Rochester went smoothly and we got into the terminal with enough time, but not much extra, before our flight.  We are flying Jet Blue from Rochester to JFK where we will be catching our big flight to London.

The first flight went fine.  The girls were pretty restless but overall it wasn’t bad.  We had a three person row for the four of us so Dominica say by the window, Liesl sat in the middle and I sat on the aisle and Luciana would migrate around among us.

Liesl was an angel not complaining at all and being perfectly behaved.  Luciana did pretty well but when the plane descended into JFK the pressure seems to have been kind of painful and she cried a bit.  But the first flight was definitely as good as we could hope for.  Hopefully a good omen.

After arriving at JFK we had a six hour layover during which we had to figure out how we would keep ourselves going and entertain the children.   We have been dreading this part.

As we landed at JFK and taxied down the runway we happened to go past the NASA Space Shuttle that had just recently been flown in to New York.  It was sitting in a hanger still riding on the back of the 747 that carries it.

We ended up lucking out completely and getting a perfect little spot in an odd hallway at our gate where we had three seats looking out at the plane that we would be taking to London – an older British Airways Boeing 747.  We moved the chairs around and piled up our luggage to corral Luciana in so that she could not casually escape our bunker and we set about collecting food and whatnot to entertain ourselves.

Overall, considering the length of the layover, it went pretty smoothly.  The location was perfect and we even ended up having our own set of power charging outlets so we managed to get the mobile phone charged and ready ahead of the trip.  I posted a lot to Facebook while we were sitting there as well keeping everyone apprised of our status.  I continue to be really disappointed with the way that the Android phones work and even this later model with new hardware and much newer software is still quite painful to use compared to my iPhone and I already know that this is bound to be a long trip simply because I know that I am stuck working from an Android device as my key connection to the outside world for so much of it.

Our plane boarded on time and we got the bulkhead seating for which we had been hoping.  The plane was much older than we would have guessed and we had far less comfortable seats that you would hope for on such a long flight.  The only exciting bit was that after all of these years of flying I have never had a chance to ride in a 747.  When I was really young it was the 727 nearly always that we flew and sometimes the 737.  I’ve ridden in many DC9s and once a DC10.  Even the 757 and 767 and I believe a 777 but for my entire lifetime of flying I have never had the opportunity to fly in the acclaimed “Jumbo Jet” so I was pretty excited to get the change.  British Airways is the world’s largest operator of the massive 747-400 which is fast and huge.

Our flight left Rochester without incident and we set off for our seven and a half hour trans-Atlantic flight.  The early part of the flight, the part that falls into today’s entry, was a rough one for both girls.  Liesl did her best to be well behaved but she was struggling to rest and was constantly having to put up with her very fussy baby sister.  And the video system on the flight was broken so Liesl was effectively unable to watch anything which would have done wonders for passing the time.

Luciana had a terrible time on the flight.  Under the best conditions she does not fall asleep easily and any change in her schedule or location throws everything off.  This was really bad.  She screamed and whined and was just awake and incredibly unhappy for hours.  British Airways did manage to get us a special bulkhead sleeper unit for her but she was pretty unhappy with that.

There is no doubt that this is going to be a very, very long flight and tomorrow is going to be a very difficult day for us because there is no way that any of the four of us are going to be getting any significant amount of rest while on this flight and we have all of the stress and effort of arriving in a new country to deal with and then we have many hours of going from London to Nottingham that we have to deal with as well even after we get into England.

No time to sleep in this morning.  I was up around eight.  Okay, that is sleeping in a little, but not very much.  That is only around seven hours of sleep at best and that is after getting absolutely zero sleep last night since I drove through the night.  So I am going to be pretty tired all day.

Pretty much first thing this morning Danielle came up and picked me up so that we could run down to Perry to do some banking.  We got down there, did the banking and then grabbed some coffee from the “new” coffee shop that is open on Main Street now.  We then headed out to Warsaw to get Tim Horton’s coffee and donuts and from there drove back to dad’s via Wyoming.

We stopped in Wyoming so that I could see what had happened to the town.  This is my first time being back to Wyoming in years and while I was aware that all of the businesses had packed up and left I really did not have a good feel for how bad it was.  There is truly almost nothing left.  The grocery store is still there as is one little office on a side street and a tiny little bank branch that has extremely limited hours – basically just an ATM.  Everything else is gone.  The pub is gone, the Christmas shop, the ice cream place, the antique store, the knick knack place, the cafe down the street, the bed and breakfast, the inn and many more businesses… all gone.  It is nearly a ghost town.  So sad.

Then we were back to dad’s house where I worked as much as I could until it was time for the wedding.  Danielle stopped back up briefly with Michael so that we could see him as neither Min nor I have seen him in a few years now – not since picking him up when he returned from Africa.

The wedding is in Geneva which is about two hours from dad’s house (allowing the necessary time for everything) and is being held at Belhurst Castle Winery on Seneca Lake and is at three in the afternoon so dad and I had to leave the house very early.

We had a really nice time at the wedding.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  They could not have asked for a better day.  Bright sun, light breeze, perfect day on the lake.  My guitar teacher played the music for their wedding as well so I got a chance to hang out with him.  Ralph gave me my first guitar lesson twenty-nine years ago this year.  That is hard to believe.

I danced a bit tonight – hoping to burn off some of the pasta from dinner.  My aunt Ruth was in attendance today so I got to spend some time with her.

On the way home to dad’s house we stopped off at Tom Wahl’s to get some additional protein.  Tomorrow is going to be a long, exhausting day and I will definitely be needing my energy.

We got back to the house and the Toccos were still there so we visited for twenty minutes at most and they headed off to Rochester to go to the Country Inn and Suites where they are staying.  We got right off to bed.  We have to be up around seven tomorrow and on the road by around eight so that we can get up to Rochester, meet Dominica’s parents for breakfast, eat and get to the airport in time.  So much to do.

This is our last night with Oreo for six weeks.  That makes us very sad.  His health is not good and we hate to leave him behind.  He is almost never sleeping in bed with us now and has been like this for weeks.  He slept on the floor at the foot of our bed tonight.

I was still driving when the day flipped over from Wednesday to Thursday.  We hit traffic in Texas as we attempted to leave the DFW yesterday afternoon but after we were out of the DFW things flowed smoothly all night.  We took the northern route through Oklahoma which I much prefer when we are leaving during heavy evening traffic in the DFW area as it gets us out of the traffic zone much more quickly than heading all of the way through the DFW in order to head east out to Arkansas.

Dominica took over driving for a few hours early this morning.  We listened to a bunch of classic country music on her iPod and sang along for much of the night.

In the morning we stopped at a McDonald’s with a play area in southern Illinois so that the girls could get out and stretch a bit.  Both of the girls have been doing an amazing job of riding in the car.  Liesl has been a perfect angel without the slightest bit of complaining which we were not expecting at all.  I can’t get over how well she has done on this really long trip.

While we were at McDonald’s I talked to Dominica about how well we were doing as far as making good time on the drive and mentioned that if possible that I would really like to run out to East Canton, Ohio so that I could see my family as we pass by.  My family is only about thirty minutes out of the way on the drive from Texas to New York so it really is a good chance to see them.  I texted my cousin and my aunt and let them know that we were going to be coming through in the middle of the afternoon.

We made it to my grandmother’s house at a quarter after three.  Most of my family was able to meet up with us there including my cousin Monica.  So we hung out for just a little bit before all going into Louisville to have a very early dinner at Grinders.  It was really nice that we were able to stop by as I was able to take my grandmother out for Mother’s Day and she got to see the girls for a few hours.  Getting her more time with Luciana is very important at Luciana has a little bit of stranger danger and having grandma meet her today before spending more time with her in two months will help with that.

It was just a few minutes past midnight when we pulled into dad’s driveway.  We were in bed in pretty much no time.  We were really exhausted.  Dominica really helped a lot with the driving on this trip and might have driven as much as a third of the way.  Altogether the drive, including our stops, took thirty hours.

Tomorrow I am working from dad’s house in the morning, running errands with Danielle and then heading off to Jeremy and Rachael’s wedding in Geneva.  Dominica and the girls will be staying home and her parents are coming out to hang out with the girls in the evening.

Wow, the day is really here.  Today is the day that we leave Texas for… two months!  I can’t believe that we are finally leaving for New York and on to Europe.  It has been in the planning stages for so long that it seems impossible that the day is finally here.

I tried to sleep in this morning but I woke up at a quarter till seven and could not fall back asleep.  So I got up, showered and put in a little time wrapping stuff up around the house before heading into the office this morning.  Even going to bed last night and getting up this morning it doesn’t seem like we are really leaving for the first stage of our vacation today.  Totally surreal.

I know that for normal people, going on a vacation is a normal, annual thing.  But this is both my first “real” vacation, other than our honeymoon, since my parents’ trip to Prince Edward Island with me in 1992 but also my first vacation, ever, of this length, our first time seeing much of Europe and the first vacation with my girls.  This is big.

I came home at lunch and helped Dominica to get things ready.  I watered the lawn while I was home, it was looking pretty dry.  I helped her to get things ready to pack although the car was pretty much completely packed by that point already.

I went back to work but didn’t stay for long.  Things were really slow this afternoon so I just took care of any paperwork that needed my attention.  Things were so slow that I left at a quarter till four to get home and get on the road.

I am posting this as I leave the office.  We will be driving all night and hope, if all goes well, to be arriving before dark at dad’s house in New York tomorrow.  I sure hope that I can stay up driving all night.  This is going to be a long one.

Adios!