Day 2: Liverpool -> York

This day we had a later start, so before heading off, a large number of us went to visit Liverpool's cathedral. It was beautiful inside and out! 

We then hopped on the coach and headed for York, where we had our free time to explore. I really loved York, it was full of beautiful buildings, great shops, a yummy milkshake bar, and streets that looked like they came out of Harry Potter. 

After wandering for the day, we all had dinner in a pub, where I got to try Yorkshire pudding! It's basically a pastry bowl (sort of) with gravy. It was pretty good!

After that we did a bit more wandering and then jumped on the coach to drive to our hotel in Leeds. At the hotel there was an overbooking of rooms with two beds, so 6 of us had to be in rooms where we shared a bed (which I suppose would be awkward for people rooming with someone they don't really know, but all the people that it happened to had come together so we didn't care). Of course to make up for this "inconvenience" they gave us each a complimentary bottle of wine! A great day can always be made better with alcohol!

Day 1: London -> Liverpool

The first day of our tour began with an early meet up at 6:30am. Normally waking up early wouldn't be too much of a problem, but we now have jet lag as our traveling companion, so it was quite hard to drag ourselves out of bed. 

After loading everyone and their luggage onto the coach, we were off! 

We had a grand tour of London (in the rain) from our coach. No stops. Jordan and I will be exploring London after the tour. 

After this whirlwind tour, we made our way to Liverpool, where we basically had free time to explore until our Beatles tour. 

Our Beatles tour was pretty amazing. We got to see all the places that they lived and worked, places that they wrote songs about (like the famous Penny Lane!!), and got to hear a heap of Beatles history. 

That night, after dinner, we went out to The Cavern Club. It's where the Beatles got their start! It was very exciting, very loud, and very hot, but loads of fun. 

Overall, an amazing first day of our tour!

The rest of our travel day

Well we had a pretty uneventful 4 hour layover in Chicago, so I won't waste time talking about it. 

Our 7 hour British Airways flight to London was amazing!! They had little entertainment systems at each seat with great movies and music. The food was also really good. For dinner we had chicken curry with a roll, a salad, and a lemon cake for desert. Then we were also given crossiants for breakfast! Over all it was great flying experience!

Then we finally landed in London! It took a while to get our bags (when does it not?) but our waiting paid off because as we were walking out of baggage claim, Ed Sheeran walked right passed us!! Talk about a great welcome to London!

Then it was time to figure out the tube and get ourselves to our hotel (all of which turned out to be really easy!). 

View from our hotel room!

After settling into our room we went exploring for a few hours and then went back to crash for a couple hours before our meeting with our tour group. 

After this exhaustingly long day, we went to bed! It was glorious how we both fell asleep the moment we hit the bed!

Today is the day!

Today we start our trek to London! 

Right now Jordan and I are sitting in the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport waiting for our flight to Chicago. We have been here since about 7:15 am and our flight doesn't leave till 11:10 am. Needless to say we are very bored and very ready to get on this plane. 

Well I better go, they are finally starting to board our plane! See ya in Chicago!

10 days left

Our trip is so close I can almost touch it!

I suppose it would be a good idea for me to actually start packing my suitcase. I've just been so busy lately that all I have really done is set a few things aside that I don't want to forget. Mostly I've been cleaning the house and trying to find places for all my stuff from Florida and from college. Right now my room is a bit of a mess, but I have high hopes of getting it clean in 9 days when Jordan gets here from California!

Our trip has definitely been keeping me running around! I've been getting foreign currency, talking to my bank about going out of the country, making sure my flights are still in order, getting my travel insurance and passport together, and now packing. Vacation prep is crazy!

28 days left

The past couple of days have been a little bit stressful due to British Airways changing which flight from Chicago to London I was going to be on, but not changing Jordan's flight. This would have meant that we would be on that eight hour flight by ourselves, and then arriving at Heathrow airport two hours apart.

Normally I think this would be an easy fix with just a simple call to the airlines to switch either my flight back to the original time I booked or to have Jordan switch to my new flight, whichever one worked out. But getting a hold of a representative at British Airways proved to be quite the task.

Now I'm not generally one to complain about stuff like this, but it just became a bit ridiculous trying to fix this issue. First we had to deal with their business hours since we are west coast and they are east. Then when we finally got on the phone during business hours, calls would be dropped for "not being able to connect." Once actually connecting and making it through all of their automated questions to get you to the right person, we would be on hold for very long periods of time, to the point where we would just give up because we couldn't sit around waiting all day. Finally, one day, after being on hold for a grand total of 40 minutes, I got through to a representative. Of course, to add insult to injury, she was rather hard to understand, but she was very helpful and sorted everything out without charging me for changing a flight (especially since they did the changing without my consent).

I'm just glad that it all worked out and I don't have to worry about it anymore. I can focus on other things, like how I've started setting things aside to pack and I got my universal travel adapter. The trip is coming up quick!

36 days left

Well my college program ended on Friday and I'm now back home reacclimating to being back in Arizona. It's definitely hotter here (111 F!!!!), but I'm quite glad to be rid of that Florida humidity!

It's now time to start figuring things out for our UK trip! Sometime this week or next week Jordan and I will FaceTime to hash some stuff out together. Soon we will need to start packing. It's all starting to feel real!! 

Well it's time for me to get back in the pool! It's just too darn hot to be sitting outside and not be in the water!