Foods to try in London/England #1: Pizza.
We ended the night by moving our car to a sketchy parking garage and hauling our luggage inside before heading to sleep.
Right before dad and I went to sleep, he realized that he didn't have his passport on him. He and I both freaked out and stripped down the room before heading out to the car to find it. Luckily, it was laying in the floorboard under his feet. Instead of going straight back to the hotel, we walked through St. Pancras station and Kings Cross station where I visited Hogwarts for the second time.
I got up early and took a train from Passau to Munich where I sat and waited on my plane. I was so anxious as I waited. Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was excitement. Maybe it was the fact that I was reading a newspaper all about the GermanWings crash (a Lufthansa company) and I was flying Lufthansa that day.
Either way, I prayed my hardest and walked onto the plane. I sat at the window seat like I like to do. Five minutes before take off, a mother and her adorable two children came and sat next to me. I got to help entertain the [trilingual] kids throughout the flight, calming my nerves a bit.
Finally, I landed at London Heathrow, safe and sound. Upon making it through security, I got increasingly more excited as I walked toward the International Arrivals gate. As I walked through the gate, I instantly saw my mother, father, granddad and grandma smiling back at me! I rushed to get around the barrier so I could hug them but my mother was quicker. She ducked under the barrier and ran to meet me. I was a bit worried that mom would get in trouble with security so I quickly got us out of the way of the rest of the gate.
After hugging everyone about a million times, we headed downstairs to find an Enterprise bus.
Anyway, my mother has been pestering me to get this finished...
Keine Angst, ich werde dies bald auf Deutsch schreiben!
"I’ve made it this far and refused to give up because all my life I had to always finish the race" - Louis Zamperini
The next morning we woke up, had breakfast, and piled into the car. Car rental in England tip #1: Don't rent a big car. Even if you don't think it's big, it probably is. We headed west out of the city towards Shropshire County. As we were driving though some of the London suburbs, not only did it start raining, but we got a flat tire. We pulled off the main road and parked in a small residential area. We couldn't find a spare and we didn't have a working phone to call the car company. We were stuck. |
Car rental in England tip #2: Don't trust "Run-Flat" tires that allow you to drive for a period of time with a flat tire because there is a trade-off... the car contains no spare tire.
An hour and a half later, the repair man was still not there. We called Enterprise and they claimed that he had already been there, not seen us, and left. So they sent a second repairman who showed up a few minutes later. He filled the tire up with enough air so we could drive to the nearby service station and get a new tire.
Foods to try in London/England #2: Fish & Chips
On the way home, we made a quick detour to a little town called Warwick. We hopped out of the car and explored the charming little town complete with Warwick Castle. It turned out to be a great detour!
The following day, after figuring out where we were going and what we needed to do before we left the city, we got our car out of the garage we had left it in and navigated our way out of the city. Unfortunately, the directions were not as clear as we had thought and we ended up taking a wrong turn. We got lost in the city AND accidentally drove into the Congestion Zone. For those of you unaware of what the Congestion Zone is, it is the very city center of London and if your drive in this area at any time from Monday to Friday, you must pay a congestion fee of 11 pounds. On the chance that your car is photographed in the zone, your license plate number will be compared to the cars that have paid their congestion fee. If your car was photographed and you did not pay the fee by 12am the following day, you could be slapped with a large fine. Needless to say, we didn't take our chances.
Car rental tip in England #3: DO NOT drive into the congestion zone.
Finally out of the city, we headed Northeast towards Norwich. We planned to visit a little town called Shelton (my grandparents' last name). This is where my ancestors on my mother's and grandparents' side of the family came from. Our first stop was St. Mary's church.
When Elizabeth was young and her life was threatened, she fled north of London to St. Mary's Church in Shelton. She hid in the top room of the church and was cared for by her great aunt and uncle, John and Anne. Upon Elizabeth's coronation, she invited her (and my) Shelton relatives to live with her in the palace.
(Mom, please correct me if I got any of this wrong...)
After a successful trip to the most beautiful and interesting church building I've ever seen, we headed another 11 kilometers north to Norwich where we found an adorable old town area and ate a delicious meal!
Upon arriving back in London and turning our car in to Enterprise, we considered going back to the hotel. However, we were leaving early the next morning and my grandparents had never seen the main London attractions! So, at 11 o'clock at night, we hopped on the Tube and sped off to the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the river Thames, Westminster Abbey, the houses of Parliament and Big Ben!
My second time in London was quite an adventure and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world!
Coming up next: Brussels, Cologne, Passau, Salzburg, and Munich. Not to mention the things I've been up to since my family left! Stay tuned!
Liebe Grüße aus Bayern,
Lyndee