This is probably going to take me forever to type up so I have no idea when this will appear. Obviously as you are reading this it is up but for me this is starting Sunday morning. Quite a bit happened on just over a week so lets start with the traveling to England shall we?
For once we were flying a different airline than we usually do, normally we would take Virgin Atlantic for a trip back to England since they generally were the cheapest and also have better planes with more in flight entertainment to keep us busy. In fact when we moved to the US we used them and booked a premium economy seat to treat ourselves a little bit. To our surprise when we did actually fly out we got upgraded to first class, not sure how that happened but it was the comfiest flight I've ever been on. Pity the flight we took a couple of weeks ago wasn't like that. I think it is safe to say that our experience in the airport was better than on the actual plane.
We got to the airport early enough to check in and get the best seats. In fact we got there so early that they couldn't check us in yet since they didn't know the seating layout of the plane they were going to use yet. 30 minutes later we actually checked in and got the emergency exit row seats, not for the leg room but for the fact that you have nobody in front of you leaning their seat back in to your face. We had one flight once where the seats were so close together when the guy in front leaned his seat back it knocked my wife's drink over. Not to mention later on he managed to throw his seat belt behind him and hit my wife on the head with it, he was a total twat and Canadian to boot. Anyway, this flight was alright, we flew British Midland International since it was so much cheaper than the next one we could find. Even then over 60% of the ticket was taxes and fees and not the ticket, flying is getting stupidly expensive.
The flight itself as I said was alright. The food was a bit tepid, a bit of watery chicken and vegetables for dinner and a rather naff breakfast before we landed. It was an overnight flight but as usual it is pretty damn hard to sleep on a plane with the noise. The entertainment was like 9 channels playing on a loop so you had to catch it at the right time to watch anything which is annoying, not like the on demand stuff with pausing you get on most flights. The flight itself made good time getting to England and we got there earlier than expected and had to circle for 15 minutes or so before they let us land. When we got off we found ourselves at the very end of terminal 1 at Heathrow. I don't know how many people reading this have been to Heathrow but to get anywhere you have to do a lot of walking. I'm talking about 20 to 25 minutes to get to the end of some of the terminals. Guess how far away we were. Yeah, it took us almost 20 minutes of walking to get from the gate we landed at to the passport check point. Luckily there were no queues so we simply strolled through, got our passports scanned and were on our way. Then when we got the baggage claim around the corner we literally didn't stop walking since our bags were right there so we grabbed them and walked right out through customs with no stops. Bascially from getting off the plane to leaving the airport we walked continuously with no stops on the way for 25 minutes. Not bad going really just quite a long way to go. My parents were there to pick us up and off we went to there house.
We had taken off at 7pm in the evening California time and landed at 1pm in the afternoon England time. For us that was 5 in the morning the next day without any sleep and we still had an afternoon and evening to go before we could go to bed and get over the jet lag properly. The drive to my parents house was uneventful in itself, just with my fathers too fast driving, he is in his 60s now and doesn't have the reactions he used to have yet still likes going 80mph plus. I just sat back and tried to take it easy and see if I could see what had changed in England since we were last there. It was still as green as I remember it, something I miss the most about living there. Where we are in California goes all brown in the summer and the only green bits are the hills in winter/spring so it is nice to see a landscape that is green all over.
Once we got to my parents house my wife and I breathed a sigh of relief that my dads driving was done with for the day and wandered in to the house. We had to get the quick tour of the changes my parents have done to the house since we were last there, basically two new bathrooms with some slightly moved walls, new carpet and paint downstairs and a new stairs banister. Nothing really exciting but they had to show us. The afternoon was then spent in taking it easy. Since I got a little rest in the plane (although not sleep) I stayed awake whilst my wife slept for a few hours to try and get over the tiredness and jet lag.
The main reason for us going to England was to see our new nephew so we were only spending one night at my parents house. Because of this my parents invited my brother and his girlfriend over for dinner since I haven't seen him since I last went back to England 5 years or so ago. The food at dinner wasn't great, usually my parents will get in a big Chinese takeaway when we go over but this time my mother decided to cook some fairly dry prosciutto wrapped chicken with salad. Still it was good to be together with all of my immediate family for a change, something my mother really appreciated especially since my brother is going to be moving to Australia at some point in the near future. It was a good enough evening though and we made it awake all the way until 10pm (2pm California time). So we had been awake from 7am one day to 2pm the next, not bad going really.
Seeing my brother allowed me to see the changes in him since I last saw him. Like me he has lost a bit of weight although he has done it by running a lot (5+ miles 3 times a week minimum) rather than cutting down on what he eats. I felt good knowing he is going grey faster than me though :-P . I colour my hair slightly since I only have a little grey up front where as he has it all over now. Also seeing him in a beard in strange, something he has done to make the grey less obvious apparently.
Jeez, this is getting long and I'm only on the first day. It is almost Sunday afternoon so lets make this part 1 and leave it as to be continued after I go make lunch.
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