It shouldn't be this difficult.....but boy the adventure is fun.....

Well we are off on another unrehearsed tour of Europe. Thurday we left in the car for Chicago to fly out of O’Hare to London. We arrived in the terminal at 2:00pm for a 4:18pm flight….perfect. When we got checked in, we found the flight was delayed until 6:30pm. So after we successfully completed all of the stupid human tricks to get through security, we sat in the gate area for 4 hours. Then they said that they did not know when the plane would get there and we should go board a different flight for London. The good news is….we got to London, the bad news is…..we didn’t get to fly in Business Class. Oh well. It took us about 2 miles of walking and an hour to clear customs, then, we set out to find how to get a ride to our hotel. Yes, the British do speak English, but it is not like central Indiana ‘Hoosier English’. We found the bus, figured out how to read the bus chart and waited about 30 minutes for our bus to arrive. We figured out how to CORRECTLY read the bus chart as our bus drove away, without us on it. Another 30 minute delay. By the time we got checked in, had lunch and a beer, we were recharged and ready to tackle the London mass transit system. How difficult could that be ? Ooops…..more travel errors. But we finally made it downtown. We knew by the buses.

Then we headed to Buckingham Palace….

And headed around to the back of the Palace and found the Queen’s Gallery (which we were searching for and found by accident). Awesome oils and period furniture, and without a doubt, the finest public men’s room I have ever been in. I wish I had that much woodwork in my entire house.

Then we found a tour of the Palace’s equine and carriage department. Very impressive. We both said that the facilities did not quite compare to the stables of Anheiser-Busch, but the carriages were over-the-top. They even displayed the one that William & Katherine rode in at their April wedding.

Tomorrow is off to see as much of London as we can in one day. Time for bed now, we have been up for about 36 hours now and we’re pretty pooped.