Good bye UK

Well, I am still behind on my posts - I have one last one to do for Nigeria and then one for the wedding, however you all know how much I hate typing on my iPad, so that has held me back. Now I am sitting in the London Lounge at the Hell they Call Heathrow waiting for my flight, so I am taking the opportunity to use a real computer with a real keyboard to do my last posting of this trip, but not my last post - if that makes sense. (I am comitted to my other 2 posts)

I got back to London yesterday afternoon after a quiet train ride back from Newcastle. I do believe that we all had had a good time and needed the 3 hour train ride to regroup before we hit London again. Unfortunately the aircon was down in the car that we were riding in - ugh! Once we got to London, Nick & Susan headed back to his aunts and Judy (these are my friends I was with this weekend) and I took the tube together to my stop, where I got off and she changed trains. Keep in mind that by now I am now dragging around a 25kg suitbase, 1 carry-on, a pillow and a purse - so I am sight to be hold as I navigate the tube and the streets! :-) I was booked into the Sheraton Park Lane, which is a lovely old art deco building built in the 1920s facing Green Park and right by Buckingham Palace. Luckily my patronage with the Starwoods group has paid off and they upgraded me to an executive room, which was quite nice. Unfortunately the Queen wasn't home or I would have popped by for a visit!

When I was in Nigeria, I got a note from an old friend from uni who invited me out on my way through London, so I took him up on the offer. He was having a few people over for a bbq yesterday, so when I got to town, I checked in and headed over to his place. Luckily, it was a bunch of Canadians, so I thought that my liver would be a little safer than the weekend I had just spend with the Northern Irish. I was wrong. On my way over to Greg's, I stopped at a wine store to pick up a bottle and the fellow there assured me that it wasn't swill, however when I got to Greg's, I immediately saw that he was a huge wine lover, as evidenced by the 2 large wine coolers in the kitchen and immediately knew that my wine was probably swill - I hope that he just binned it! In any event, I had a lovely evening catching up with him and getting to know his friends - one was from outside of TO, one from Manitoba and one from NE BC. We managed to drink a bottle or 6 of wine and had a lovely meal. Today I am feeling much better than anticipated, however my body is looking forward to detox. 3 days of consumming for me, is probably more than I have drank in the past year! I love hearing about their London lives and how they are going to pop over to France for the weekend, or head to the weekend place in Switzerland. Yah, I get to go to Fort McMurray. Something just doesn't seem right here. Speaking of which, I am heading there nice bright and early tomorrow morning - the travel never ends!

For those of you who know me well and know my travel habits, you will be shocked to hear that this princess is riding at the back of the bus for this flight home. I am low on upgrade credits and unless the gate agent feels sorry for me when I board, I will be sitting in economy. Shocker I know. I have known this for a while, so I am mentally prepared :-) Plus, since it is a day flight and I don't need to sleep, I figure that it won't be too bad. The good thing is, is that with my Elite status, I still get to board the plane early and get all settled, without having to jostle with the commoners as they board the plane :-)

So this is probably my last great adventure for the year - I think. I am heading to Hawaii for a couple of weeks at Christmas but I am not so certain as that qualifies for an adventure or it's own posts but we shall see. What I am continually reminded of as I globetrott this world, is that it is an amazing world full of amazing and beautiful things and people to see and how so very lucky I am to be able to do so!