Our Vacation: The End

This part isn't as exciting as what came before, I'm afraid.

Our flight back to the U.S. was on Thursday. Right after breakfast, we took the Underground from the stop closest to our hotel to Heathrow; it took an hour, but at least we didn't have to transfer. We got there about four hours before our flight, and while we had to wait for a while after check-in to learn where our gate was, we needed the time to get through all the layers of security at Heathrow. Even after going through the metal dectectors, we still had to open our carryon luggage for inspection at the gate and submit to a pat-down. I have to admit the extra precautions were reassuring, though.

Since we weren't trying to sleep on the flight back, I watched X-Men: The Last Stand (OK, but I wasn't happy about the differences from the comics) and played trivia head-to-head against Eugene. I'd say we both did well. Clearing customs was much easier here than back in London, especially since we didn't have to wait as long.

Our flight back to Chicago wasn't until Saturday afternoon, so we spent the time with Eugene's aunt and uncle. We'd hoped to meet with some people, including the Dear NYer, but our plans fell through. It rained buckets on Friday, so we didn't feel like going out into New York. It was nice to relax and start catching up on more than just e-mail.

The airport Saturday was very crowded; Eugene speculated the rain on Friday had canceled some flights. There was some confusion about which gate we were supposed to use, but in the end, we made it back on time. We didn't get home until about 10:00 last night.

So, that's about it. London was very expensive, but we had a great time and would love to go back. There's so much there we didn't get to see, and we'd like to make some day trips to Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon, Stonehenge...and, of course, Liverpool.

I'm still uploading my pictures to Photobucket, and Eugene needs to transfer his photos to CD so I can upload them via my computer. I'll post a link when I'm done; hopefully this site will let people see the pictures without having to register first.