Or maybe I could call this post "What it's like to work all night, drive right to the airport after your shift, and fly clear across the Atlantic without ever really sleeping". Not that I minded one bit...it was time to fly to London for the weekend to see Monty Python Live!
Since we're smack in the middle of prime time leave at work it's almost impossible to get leave approved. That wasn't about to stop us...Mark and I both swapped into the mid, took our packed bags with us to work, and drove right to Dulles from work in the morning after our shift. We managed to beat most of the traffic and checked in, cleared security, and made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare. We grabbed some breakfast and eventually boarded our flight.
Since we're smack in the middle of prime time leave at work it's almost impossible to get leave approved. That wasn't about to stop us...Mark and I both swapped into the mid, took our packed bags with us to work, and drove right to Dulles from work in the morning after our shift. We managed to beat most of the traffic and checked in, cleared security, and made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare. We grabbed some breakfast and eventually boarded our flight.
Bye, Dulles!
We were flying direct to Heathrow on United; the flight was long enough that they fed us twice and each seat had its own movie screen so you could watch movies and TV along the way. I spent most of the time either eating or dozing, and I probably managed to get about an hour and a half or so of sleep. We eventually landed at Heathrow (at almost 10pm London time!) and cleared customs; the customs lady I wound up with told me that someone else had come through earlier that day to see Monty Python, too. Mark had researched some ground transportation stuff ahead of time, so we bought a couple train and prepaid tube tickets (called Oyster cards), then caught one of the last trains to Paddington Station, where we eventually made our way to the Tube.
We were flying direct to Heathrow on United; the flight was long enough that they fed us twice and each seat had its own movie screen so you could watch movies and TV along the way. I spent most of the time either eating or dozing, and I probably managed to get about an hour and a half or so of sleep. We eventually landed at Heathrow (at almost 10pm London time!) and cleared customs; the customs lady I wound up with told me that someone else had come through earlier that day to see Monty Python, too. Mark had researched some ground transportation stuff ahead of time, so we bought a couple train and prepaid tube tickets (called Oyster cards), then caught one of the last trains to Paddington Station, where we eventually made our way to the Tube.
The recorded announcement lady actually says it, too. :)
Once you figure out how to read the maps (which are color-coded), it's really easy to get around on the Tube, even when you're sleep deprived and feel like you've been awake for three days. We changed lines at Baker Street, made our way down to Clapham, and got to our hotel right around midnight.
Our hotel was so nice! Sorry it's another bathroom picture but the bedroom picture was blurry and besides, it was a cute bathroom. We were staying at the Windmill on the Common in Clapham, which was right on the edge of a big park (not that we could see it too well in the middle of the night). We were pretty beat by the time we got checked in, so we grabbed some quick showers and passed out almost immediately. We had a lot of stuff we wanted to cram into the next day, so we definitely needed the sleep!
No comments:
Post a Comment