Well, we made it safely and soundly across the pond. Flight was fantastic, E-Koog and B-Koog went to the cockpit and sat in the co-pilot seat. I was remarkably sober having taken only 2 anti-anxiety pills (tranquilizers) and was actually able to sleep for an hour or so on the flight to London.
Flight:
Not sure if it's a scientifically proven, but Koogs HATE flying. Maybe it's a generalization since the rest of my family seem to actually enjoy it? Not sure, but I do not enjoy any part of it. I know, it's safe...it's a control thing for me and I could write thousands of blog posts about my control-freakiness...
Anyway, not much to say here except the food and the service on Virgin Atlantic was spectacular. The flight stewards work so hard to accomodate even the most, ahem, needy passenger.
Rental Car:
We originally rented a Vauxhall Minivan from Costo's travel program. About 2 weeks ago I wanted to confirm with Mrs. Koog the specs of the automobile. It went like this: Me: This rental is an automatic, right? Mrs. Koog: Hmm, let me check. No, it's a manual.
While I do drive stick quite well and Mrs. Koog drives stick also, although she acts like she has a generations long grudge against the clutch and needs to bring it pain. I was not jazzed at all about a manual transmission on the opposite side of the car while trying to stay on the opposite side of the road.
So we get to the rental car place at LHR and were presented with the option to upgrade to an automatic transmission. My lovely, usually frugal better half could not agree fast enough! Bam, upgraded to an automatic. Should also mention we have a SatNav in our car so we know how to get where we are going and obviously punched Stonehenge into the GPS and off we went.
On the road to the Stones:
Since I was still kind of under the influence of my tranquilizers, we decided Mrs. Koog would take the wheel for the day. She did a great job of staying to the left and the boys and I did a great job yelling "stay to the left". While we were driving for maybe 15 mins, the oil light in the car comes on and starts aggressively flashing. We pull over at a rest stop Starbucks and try to call the rental car company.
I say try because, 2 highly educated adults that have traveled all over the world could not figure out how to call a UK number. It was like we were given an unsolvable riddle. I kept dialing the same set of numbers as if the 4th time was the charm. We used the Google machine and figured out our problem. Let's chalk that confusion up to jet lag and lack of caffiene. Mrs. Koog finally got through to them and they said they would have someone to us within the hour.
While we waited we had coffee. And we waited. And we waited. After at least 75 mins we started the car and, lo and be hold, the light was off! It was a miracle, the car healed itself! Mrs. Koog, wanting to show off her newly aquired international dialing skills call the rental car company and off we went!
The drive there was beautiful once off the highway. It was pretty uneventful with Mrs. Koog at the helm and the rest of us yelling "stay to the left".
Stonehenge
Big pile of rocks we walked more than 2 miles to see! Seriously, it was pretty cool and the little Koogs really enjoyed it. After all, it was the first thing they mentioned when we talked about places to visit in the UK. We also made it out of a giftshop without a single purchase! Go us!
Driving to Bath:
If I had to sum up the trip to and through Bath I could do it in 4 words. What. The. Actual. F%#K.
We put the address in to the GPS and have a beautiful drive through the countryside to the edges of the city of Bath. Streets become narrower, parking on the side of the streets make it feel like we are threading the needle at every turn. Lucky for Mrs. Koog, she has us to yell "stay to the left" every 20 seconds.
Once into the actual city center, things got dicey. It appeared that the road needed to access our apartment was closed. No problem, looking at the map on the GPS we could see other options so decided to drive toward those streets and force a reroute. Except that street was closed, too. Mrs. Koog, with lady-balls of steel, continued to drive around as we yelled "stay to the left" louder and more often now that we were lost-ish.
I said many words that will deny my entry to heaven.
After about 45 mins of automobile terror, Mrs. Koog took a wrong turn that was not a street but a parking garage so we parked there and headed into the town to eat and figure out a plan to find this f$#ing place. We grabbed a quick bite (cornish meat pies) and headed back to the car to find this place because we all need a nap!
The same roads were closed, the same screams of "stay to the left" and the same outcome...no apartment. Did I mention we all needed a nap? Using our phone skills again, I called the hotel that manages the apartment we rented for help. The young woman while sweet was very unhelpful but did wish us good luck. She also mentioned a parking garage that was less than a 5 minute walk as the apartment didn't have parking. Luckily we are not a family of 4 traveling for 30 days with suitcases? More loud bad words. We circled 3 more times. Mrs. Koog needed a break from the driving and the near misses of other cars and pedestrians so we found a place on the street to park for a second to get a plan.
I am just as patient as I am helpful and stated loudly (and with colorful language) "It was only $250US, let's just skip it and drive the 3 hours to Wales! They will welcome us!" Yes, I believed in my drugged, agitated and exhausted state an entire COUNTRY would welcome us as traveling exiles from Bath but really from Maryland. I may or may not have repeated this statement 10 times in less than 5 mins.
Mrs. Koog calmly took us to the only place we could reliably find sanctuary and peace, that parking garage she mistook for a street, to see if we could find the apartment on foot. Like the frickin' stable saint she is, she used Google maps once out of the garage to find that the apartment was less than 2 blocks from where we were standing. It was BEHIND WHERE WE ATE OUR COURNISH MEAT PIES.
So, we decided to just go there because it was after 3 and we needed a nap. We would grab all our crap from the car later. (spoiler alert: all of our stuff was still there. it's not that kind of story).
We get to the apartment and find we never recieved the instructions to get into the space. I offer my suggestion to head to Wales, again. Mrs. Koog decideds to call the hotel. She gets the entry code and is told that our apartment is unlocked and the keys are on the table. We head up the most narrow and steep steps to our apartment, where the door is not unlocked. I offer my let's leave and head to Wales suggestion again. Ignoring me completely by this point in the day, she calls the hotel again and they come to us. They unlock the door and point out that while the door WAS locked, the keys were in fact on the table. The guy left before I could murder him.
We all needed a nap very badly! It was a 2 hour nap. When I woke up, I literally thought it was the next day and it was time to leave for Wales. After repeated attempts by everyone in the family to convince me it was STILL Monday, I decided to trust them and head to dinner.
The famous Sally Lunn's was B-Koog's choice for dinner. And what a dinner it was! Sally Lunn Buns are famous for a reason!
We walked around to the town, saw the beautiful church and the Roman Baths. Then we headed the very short walk to the parking garage to grab as few things as possible to go up the narrow, long and steep staircase.
It was FINALLY time for bed! But now I was awake! I checked in with work since it was only 5:30 ET and after about an hour, was finally ready to shut down both my laptop and myself.
All in all, a fantastic day in a fantastic country!
I have to add the cutest thing B-Koog said while walking from the terminal to baggage claim in Heathrow. "This is amazing. It's like a fever dream but so much better." I think he will really love the UK if he can say that in LHR Terminal 3!
Flight:
Not sure if it's a scientifically proven, but Koogs HATE flying. Maybe it's a generalization since the rest of my family seem to actually enjoy it? Not sure, but I do not enjoy any part of it. I know, it's safe...it's a control thing for me and I could write thousands of blog posts about my control-freakiness...
Anyway, not much to say here except the food and the service on Virgin Atlantic was spectacular. The flight stewards work so hard to accomodate even the most, ahem, needy passenger.
Rental Car:
We originally rented a Vauxhall Minivan from Costo's travel program. About 2 weeks ago I wanted to confirm with Mrs. Koog the specs of the automobile. It went like this: Me: This rental is an automatic, right? Mrs. Koog: Hmm, let me check. No, it's a manual.
While I do drive stick quite well and Mrs. Koog drives stick also, although she acts like she has a generations long grudge against the clutch and needs to bring it pain. I was not jazzed at all about a manual transmission on the opposite side of the car while trying to stay on the opposite side of the road.
So we get to the rental car place at LHR and were presented with the option to upgrade to an automatic transmission. My lovely, usually frugal better half could not agree fast enough! Bam, upgraded to an automatic. Should also mention we have a SatNav in our car so we know how to get where we are going and obviously punched Stonehenge into the GPS and off we went.
On the road to the Stones:
Since I was still kind of under the influence of my tranquilizers, we decided Mrs. Koog would take the wheel for the day. She did a great job of staying to the left and the boys and I did a great job yelling "stay to the left". While we were driving for maybe 15 mins, the oil light in the car comes on and starts aggressively flashing. We pull over at a rest stop Starbucks and try to call the rental car company.
I say try because, 2 highly educated adults that have traveled all over the world could not figure out how to call a UK number. It was like we were given an unsolvable riddle. I kept dialing the same set of numbers as if the 4th time was the charm. We used the Google machine and figured out our problem. Let's chalk that confusion up to jet lag and lack of caffiene. Mrs. Koog finally got through to them and they said they would have someone to us within the hour.
While we waited we had coffee. And we waited. And we waited. After at least 75 mins we started the car and, lo and be hold, the light was off! It was a miracle, the car healed itself! Mrs. Koog, wanting to show off her newly aquired international dialing skills call the rental car company and off we went!
The drive there was beautiful once off the highway. It was pretty uneventful with Mrs. Koog at the helm and the rest of us yelling "stay to the left".
Stonehenge
Big pile of rocks we walked more than 2 miles to see! Seriously, it was pretty cool and the little Koogs really enjoyed it. After all, it was the first thing they mentioned when we talked about places to visit in the UK. We also made it out of a giftshop without a single purchase! Go us!
Driving to Bath:
If I had to sum up the trip to and through Bath I could do it in 4 words. What. The. Actual. F%#K.
We put the address in to the GPS and have a beautiful drive through the countryside to the edges of the city of Bath. Streets become narrower, parking on the side of the streets make it feel like we are threading the needle at every turn. Lucky for Mrs. Koog, she has us to yell "stay to the left" every 20 seconds.
Once into the actual city center, things got dicey. It appeared that the road needed to access our apartment was closed. No problem, looking at the map on the GPS we could see other options so decided to drive toward those streets and force a reroute. Except that street was closed, too. Mrs. Koog, with lady-balls of steel, continued to drive around as we yelled "stay to the left" louder and more often now that we were lost-ish.
I said many words that will deny my entry to heaven.
After about 45 mins of automobile terror, Mrs. Koog took a wrong turn that was not a street but a parking garage so we parked there and headed into the town to eat and figure out a plan to find this f$#ing place. We grabbed a quick bite (cornish meat pies) and headed back to the car to find this place because we all need a nap!
The same roads were closed, the same screams of "stay to the left" and the same outcome...no apartment. Did I mention we all needed a nap? Using our phone skills again, I called the hotel that manages the apartment we rented for help. The young woman while sweet was very unhelpful but did wish us good luck. She also mentioned a parking garage that was less than a 5 minute walk as the apartment didn't have parking. Luckily we are not a family of 4 traveling for 30 days with suitcases? More loud bad words. We circled 3 more times. Mrs. Koog needed a break from the driving and the near misses of other cars and pedestrians so we found a place on the street to park for a second to get a plan.
I am just as patient as I am helpful and stated loudly (and with colorful language) "It was only $250US, let's just skip it and drive the 3 hours to Wales! They will welcome us!" Yes, I believed in my drugged, agitated and exhausted state an entire COUNTRY would welcome us as traveling exiles from Bath but really from Maryland. I may or may not have repeated this statement 10 times in less than 5 mins.
Mrs. Koog calmly took us to the only place we could reliably find sanctuary and peace, that parking garage she mistook for a street, to see if we could find the apartment on foot. Like the frickin' stable saint she is, she used Google maps once out of the garage to find that the apartment was less than 2 blocks from where we were standing. It was BEHIND WHERE WE ATE OUR COURNISH MEAT PIES.
So, we decided to just go there because it was after 3 and we needed a nap. We would grab all our crap from the car later. (spoiler alert: all of our stuff was still there. it's not that kind of story).
We get to the apartment and find we never recieved the instructions to get into the space. I offer my suggestion to head to Wales, again. Mrs. Koog decideds to call the hotel. She gets the entry code and is told that our apartment is unlocked and the keys are on the table. We head up the most narrow and steep steps to our apartment, where the door is not unlocked. I offer my let's leave and head to Wales suggestion again. Ignoring me completely by this point in the day, she calls the hotel again and they come to us. They unlock the door and point out that while the door WAS locked, the keys were in fact on the table. The guy left before I could murder him.
We all needed a nap very badly! It was a 2 hour nap. When I woke up, I literally thought it was the next day and it was time to leave for Wales. After repeated attempts by everyone in the family to convince me it was STILL Monday, I decided to trust them and head to dinner.
The famous Sally Lunn's was B-Koog's choice for dinner. And what a dinner it was! Sally Lunn Buns are famous for a reason!
We walked around to the town, saw the beautiful church and the Roman Baths. Then we headed the very short walk to the parking garage to grab as few things as possible to go up the narrow, long and steep staircase.
It was FINALLY time for bed! But now I was awake! I checked in with work since it was only 5:30 ET and after about an hour, was finally ready to shut down both my laptop and myself.
All in all, a fantastic day in a fantastic country!
I have to add the cutest thing B-Koog said while walking from the terminal to baggage claim in Heathrow. "This is amazing. It's like a fever dream but so much better." I think he will really love the UK if he can say that in LHR Terminal 3!
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