Europe Here We Come...

On Wednesday, June 10 Mike pick me up about 10:30 in the morning and took me to Sky Harbor where I check my bag in on Southwest airlines.  I had a three hour flight to Dallas, but we left a little late. Robyn and Marty met me in baggage claim where we grabbed my bags, left Love Field and Marty drove us skillfully through traffic to Dallas Fort Worth International airport.

 

 

Robyn and I ate dinner at a Mexican food restaurant in the terminal before we prepared for our long flight over the ocean. We were first to board, being in first class or business-class. We were in seats C&D and immediately got our little gray pouch with all the ear protection, eye protection, socks and other goodies to help us have a comfortable flight.

 

 

 

 We were also immediately served little cups of Champagne, which we immediately turned in for little cups of water.

 

 

 

After take off we were served a nice four course dinner. I remember Trent talking about flying first class and getting warm wash cloths to clean your hands and sure enough he was right. It's nice to be catered to on such a long flight.

 

 

Robyn and I reviewed travel books before she decided to try to sleep. I had already finished one book in my daytime travels and decided to begin the next book in my series. My eyes were finally too heavy to read, to so I slept for a couple hours before Robyn woke me up for breakfast. It was amazing how two hours of sleep felt like an entire night, because once we landed we hit the road ready to go!

Our plane landed about 1 PM London time.
After exiting the plane we were shocked how quickly we got through customs. Being in first class you also get a pass to a special line expedited line for customs. Once we passed through customs we had a driver waiting for us. He loaded our bags and we got into his car. I had a momentary freak out when he came up the passenger side of the car to get in until I realize that was really the driver side of the car. That was my first of many wrong side of the car freak outs.

Our driver took us through the streets of London and one of the first things I noticed was how many chimneys were on top of each little building. It reminded me of Mary Poppins or Peter Pan.  The houses were mostly duplexes as we drove through the town and the traffic was pretty rough for early afternoon. We made our way to our hotel at the Marriott Marble Arch. We were right next to Hyde Park not far from the center of town.

No sooner had we made our way to our room and we had a guest, Dianne Douglas. Man, do I love that lady! She is so sweet!  She came with a gift for each of us.  A beautiful silver heart necklace with a Shakespeare quote, "Hear my Soul Speak".  We each wore our necklace everyday of the trip.

Once our bags were unpacked, we made our way to the executive lounge for a few bottles of water and bottles of soda.  They were tiny, but free, so we took what we needed before heading out onto the streets of London!