Friday/ Saturday, 1/4/02: The trip out

Genevieve was really good on the plane, to our surprise and relief. We had brought her carseat and she had her own seat on the plane.  Unfortunately, when you put a toddler in a carseat on an airplane their feet just touch the seat in front of them.  So sorry for the poor woman in front of her!  But at least Genevieve smiled really sweetly and said “hi” everytime she saw the woman.  It’s impossible to be mad at her when she’s so cute.  Genevieve played a little, walked down the aisles a little, and slept a little.  We left SFO at 4:00 and arrived at Heathrow at 10:30.  By the time we got our luggage, got through immigration, took the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station (very cool train by the way) and took the cab to our hotel, it was about 1:00.  We stayed at the Thistle Marble Arch in their deluxe room with seating area.  What a nice hotel!!  We were very happy with the room and the service and the price (156 pounds, about $225.00) was very reasonable considering that it was right in the heart of London and a full breakfast was included.  We freshened up, and then decided what to do.  Our original plan was to take a bus tour on our first day, but it was too late to make it worthwhile, so we decided to walk to Notting Hill.  We had just watched two of our favorite movies set in London (Notting Hill and Sliding Doors) so we were eager to see if reality matched the silver screen.  In the case of Notting Hill, not really.  It looked the same as in the movie, but the bohemian people at the flea market and the crowds made it seem more seedy than charming.  We didn’t really see the allure, but then we were also pretty tired.  We had some fish and chips, and then walked back to the hotel. We were beat and couldn’t do anything at night anyhow because of Genevieve, so we went to bed at 6:00 pm which I thought was a big mistake but it turned out to be okay.  Genevieve woke up at 3am crying so I had to settle her down for about an hour, but after that she was pretty well adjusted to the time difference.

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