Day 3: Tuesday, 12 August 2014 - Cardiff, Wales and London, England

First Great Western trains.

Cardiff, Wales
Seriously, I stayed up way too late again last night. My body still seems to think it’s on Eastern time. It needs to get with the program!

10:56am, Leaving Cardiff for London
Well, I'm on the train, despite not sticking to my original plan. I just could not convince myself to get up at 8:00am, and decided to once again forgo breakfast. I made it downstairs and checked out at 10:30, hoofed it to the train station, and still had time to order a cappuccino and croissant with 3 minutes to spare before the train arrived. I don't like cutting it so close, but my body thanked me for the extra sleep. I got five and a half hours, instead of only four.

Day 2: Monday, 11 August 2014 - Cardiff, Wales

8:00am, Cardiff, Wales

I set the alarm for 8am, thinking I would get up, shower, eat breakfast, and get a start on the day. I'd be able to hit nearby St. David's Centre (shopping) to get a charm from Pandora, straighten out the local phone, go to the Doctor Who Experience, and still have time to do something else, like visit Cardiff Castle.

Day 0.5: Flying to London and Time Travel

Using an airplane to time travel is always fun. Today we will travel five hours forward in time. 

Day 0: Leaving for London, 9 August 2014

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

No, wait, that's wrong. Well, not wrong, exactly. Well, you know what I mean.

Today is the first day of a 3-week vacation, and I'm headed off to Cardiff, Wales. After that it's London, England (for Worldcon), Dublin, Ireland (Shamrokon), Atlanta for Dragon*Con. and then back home to Tampa. Yes, I am going to three conventions, three weekends in a row, in three different countries. I am going to have a marvelous time, and I am going to be TIRED at the end! 8-)

Day 12: London, 12 May 2013 (Sunday)

So much for my trip to Cardiff. (Insert one Googol of curse words here) Now I'll just have to plan another trip to the UK. 8-)

I felt so sick I wound up staying in bed all day. I only left the room once to go downstairs to get new codes for the Internet and that was around 11pm. I just threw my jacket on over my pajamas. I didn't care what anyone thought.

Day 11: Kirkcaldy and London, 11 May 2013 (Saturday)

Another overcast and windy day in Scotland. I can see why my ancestors settled in the North Georgia mountains. The flora and fauna, landscape, and winter weather are all very similar. I woke up a bit early for me, so I took a shower. Amy opted to shower after breakfast.

The breakfast at the Dean Park Hotel was a traditional breakfast. I ordered eggs and "bacon" (we'd call it fried ham in the US), and Amy ordered haggis with hers. I have no desire to ever try the stuff.

We ventured back to the room for Amy to shower. We discovered that check-out was at 11:00 am (they neglected to tell us this when we checked in), so we had to rush a bit to throw everything back into our suitcases. This left us about two hours to wait for Amy's friend Dawn to arrive. We just sat in the bar and chatted. I don't recall a single person coming over to ask if we wanted to order anything. Just as well since we didn't. We just chatted about the weather, what time we needed to catch the train back to London, the fact that Amy didn't want to join me for the trip to Cardiff, etc.

Day 10: London and Edinburgh, 10 May 2013

We originally planned to go to Cardiff today, and Edinburgh on Saturday, returning to London late on Sunday. However, due to procrastination (and who hasn't done that?), the place Amy wants to stay was available only on Friday night and not Saturday night. So, we switched things around. Edinburgh today, leaving late on Saturday and heading for Cardiff where we plan to stay overnight, then do all of the Doctor Who stuff on Sunday. Stay tuned for how that works out.

I got up at 6:00 am this morning (those who know me will know that this isn't easy for me to do), showered, had breakfast in the hotel, and made it to the Kings Cross National Rail station 35 minutes before the 9:00am train departed. Not bad! That only required one change of trains on the Tube.

7:16am Awake, mostly. Need coffee to be sure. Catching early train to Edinburgh.

Day 9: London, 9 May 2013

Ah, and exciting morning (not really). Since we didn't get to the hotel until about 3:45am, we slept late this morning. I had to do laundry today, or start wearing dirty clothes. I tried various ways of using Google to find a self-service laundry nearby, but all I could ever find were Dry Cleaners and industrial laundry companies. But, thanks to our adventures on the Night Bus, I saw two different coin-op laundries that were near enough to the hotel that I figured I could get there on the bus.

I packed all of my dirty laundry, and the soap Amy bought for me on one of her treks to Tesco, into my small wheeled suitcase, and set off. The front desk confirmed that I should go right out of the hotel, then left. I really should know better than to believe any hotel employee would actually know how to get anywhere around where they work. I wound up going the opposite direction down a one-way street. This wasn't a problem walking, but it also meant that I couldn't catch a bus going in the proper direction. I also wound up walking about 3 blocks out of my way (I realized this later), and then was faced with a 3-way intersection, and had no idea which way to go.

Day 0: Leaving for London, 30 April 2013

I wound up working entirely too late on Monday night, trying to finish everything on my to-do list before being out of the office for two weeks. I failed. I did, at least, get all but one thing done, which I hope to actually finish by the end of this week anyway.

I got home around 4:30am. No sweat, I still have 9 hours before I have to leave for Deb's house in Plant City. Deb is giving Amy and I a ride to the airport, and our cars will be safe at the Plant City Gang's house (where most of the Stone Hill meetings take place), while we are away.

I reached the end of my ability to stay awake around 6:30am, so I took a bit of a nap. However, I slept a bit too long, and had to rush getting everything done after I woke up. Packing was a bit unusual since I didn't have to play "toss the cat out of the suitcase" a single time. I usually have to throw them both out several times. Nor did either of them lay on top of the clothes on the bed while I was gathering everything. Usually they have to lay on everything to make sure I take a sufficient amount of cat fur with me when I travel. I guess they knew something was up, and they were too busy sulking.

The last bit of my packing was more like throwing, sorting the electric plugs by "need vs don't need" in an effort to not take anything along unless I actually would need it. There was also a bit less time to finish than I originally planned because when I double-checked the departure time it said 6:15pm, and not 7:30pm, which it had originally been. I had completely forgot that the flight was leaving earlier!

The Hell of Renting a Holiday Flat in London

You know that saying "Where are we going, and why are we in this hand basket?"

Well, all of our plans for renting a holiday flat in London have gone to hell. In a hand basket.

To back this story up a bit, I am going to the UK for my 50th birthday present to myself. Yes, I don't turn 50 until October, but the weather is better in May. My friend, Amy Kerr, is going on this trip with me.

Amy wanted to rent a holiday flat instead of a hotel. I liked the idea, so we began our search in March. We should have started in February since many properties we viewed were already reserved, but there were still a lot of nice ones available. The fact that our search parameters were rather narrow didn't help much. Parameter 1: Two bedrooms, both needing to have at least a double bed - most of the 2BR holiday flats are designed with families with children in mind, and have two twin beds in the second bedroom. Neither of us wants to sleep on a twin bed. Parameter 2: Within a 5-minute walk of a Tube Station. Parameter 3: Not too far away from the center of the city.

After many rounds of "Sorry, the website hasn't been updated, that flat isn't available" or "that one isn't available, but we have this other one if you're willing to spend just a bit more" ("just a bit more" was usually twice the price), or just no response at all, I FINALLY got a positive response at the end of March!