London Conundrum...

'Ello again me mates! So I'm a little behind in our journey, but we've been moving so quickly, it's hard to keep up. We last left off in London...

Waiting at the train station in Wales

We arrived via train to Euston main station Saturday evening (Sept. 11). We hadn't made any lodging arrangements for the night; we figured we could just walk around and find a suitable place to stay. How wrong we were...


Joey had found a little b&b online that seemed nice enough and a good price in the Lancaster area, but it didn't give the option to book online. So we figured we'd just head over there and see if there were vancancies. Well, after walking around for quite some time, we soon realized the establishment was no longer in existance. Awesome! So plan B, there were lots of hotels around, so we started inquiring about vacancies on foot. After about five stops with the receptionists just about laughing in our faces, we realized we might be in trouble. One of the hotels informed us that pretty much everything in London on a Saturday is booked, but they were kind enough to let us use their computer to see if we could find something. I was trying not to panic, but I was getting nervous, as it was getting pretty late and we still had nowhere to go. Everything we found to have vacancies was extremely expensive, and even more so because the dollar is a low value against the English pound (surprise, surprise). So finally Joey sucked it up and got us a room at a Holiday Inn out by Heathrow airport. At least we had somewhere to sleep. Then our trek to the darn hotel began, which was no easy feat. To take a cab to the airport from where we were would have been at least 70 pounds or $125, so we headed to the train station, took the Heathrow express (still quite expensive, about 18 pounds each or $65 total...ugh!), then walked through the huge airport (though we weren't catching a flight), caught a shuttle to our airport hotel (which wasn't a free transfer, by the way) and finally....made it to our room. It was a surprisingly jampacked hotel, with strobe lights and disco music in the bar area. I guess all these people knew the hotels in the city were booked, but they were still going to party even at a Holiday Inn at out by the airport!


Needless to say, after the full day of travel via 3-hour ferry from Ireland, 4-hour train from Wales PLUS the little excursion across the greater London area in search of a bed, we were beyond exhausted and frustrated our first night in London. I wanted to cry when I thought about all the money we were forced to spend.


A word about planning ahead: apparently it's a necessity in some cases when travelling in Europe. Which is unfortunate because that kind of goes against our free-spirited mantra guiding this little journey of ours. But obviously, we don't want to end up in a situation like this again. And things are much cheaper here when you book ahead....which I guess is why people plan European vacations months in advance. But we will not be discouraged! We will fight the good fight :) And after all, sometimes it works out when you plan on a whim.....for instance, when you're staying at a villa in the Greek Isles like we are at this very moment.....life's not so bad :) But more of that to come...
 
Thank you for your prayers as we travel. We praise God for keeping us safe and healthy thus far!
 
Love to you and yours,