Departure and Arrival!

Got to airport by 8:30AM for the 10:30AM scheduled flight with assistance from our neighbor Helmut, who offered to drive us down.  That made it very easy since we didn't have to worry about parking the car or having someone come pick it up for us and store it.  Check-in wasn't as smooth as it should have been; we got upstairs and to the front of security line only to find out that they didn't give us our boarding pass, so had to return downstairs to the airline instant check in machine. After inputting all the info, we finally obtained the passes before having to go back through the security line again!  But, we made it through and recovered sitting in the nice food court, bathed in sunlight and awaiting the boarding call!  Ready to go!!

Evie at Sacramento Airport older terminal A for United

After over 24 hours since getting up yesterday, we have finally arrived and are now ready to explore!

The flight went off without a hitch; a little cramped on the long haul and  didn't sleep a wink but think Evelyn managed a couple of hours. We had a bit of difficulty with the train into town, some problem on the tracks delayed us over an hour but at last we arrived at Paddington station; one of the grand train stations in London, with a dozen or more tracks on just the overland rail portion!  There is the entire Underground part that we have yet to explore but will shortly!

We followed the line on the floor directing us to the taxi stand; went up an escalator and out a door to a long cue waiting for cabs with a constant stream of them coming in os it only took a few minutes before we were piling in to a typical London taxi.










It was only about 8 pounds to get to the hotel, the Grand Royale Hyde Park, on Inverness Terrace, a few feet from Bayswater Road, on the north side of Hyde Park.  Evelyn chose it for it's accessibility to points of interest in London, proximity of transit and it is in a very nice part of town.

Although we were earlier than normal check in, they were very accommodating and showed us to the room right away.  It was quite small, and within a few minutes Evelyn decided we had to ask for a bigger room.  We went downstairs and asked and they told her that on Monday there would be a bigger room available, so with that consolation, we went out to find lunch.

The next block over is Queensway, a major shopping street.  We walked by multiple restaurants, all serving foreign food--Italian, Arabic, African, and even an American fast food place (ever present McDonald's), before settling on the first British Pub we came across, the Bayswater Arms. I had a cottage pie and a pint of ale, and Evie had fish fingers and tea, glorious English tea that arrived at the table hot as could be, unlike the tepid American versions that she always has to ask to be heated up!

The Bayswater Arms pub, serving English grub!

View of Queensway from pub corner

 By now we've been up for well over 24 hours except for a few winks on the plane, so after lunch we went up to the room and took a 3 hour nap, before heading out for a little exploratory walk and some dinner.  All restaurants around here are from somewhere besides England, and I was in no mood for Italian or Indian or anything else for that matter, so we settled on another pub up Queensway a couple blocks off and after a good long walk around, we made it back to the room at around 10PM, watched some BBC TV and finally got to sleep after midnight on our first full day on British soil!