Arrival - Oct 20th Saturday

Saturday, October 20th

Good morning -- or as we say in the UK, good afternoon. While sleep was considered a bonus, after getting only three hours (and not such great sleep hours to boot), I can honestly say that its not a bonus -- its critical and sorely missed.  Our plane touched down at Heathrow at 12:15pm, pretty much right on time. We would have been even earlier had traffic control not placed us in a holding pattern for a half hour, about 10-min from the airport.

Baggage was pretty quick, and there was almost no one at immigration and absolutely no one at customs. Unfortunately, there was no one at the greeting gate with our name on it to identify our driver into London. After calling the car service, I learned that they had instructed the driver to pick us up at Terminal 1.  Unfortunately, we were at Terminal 4.  Our driver was so overly apologetic that I felt more sorry for him than us.

The drive into London took nearly 40-minutes despite the times we were traveling at speeds that an Apollo Mission might envy.

We arrived at the Sloane Club and received our apartment keys. Their staff would deliver our luggage about 15-minutes later, and good thing at that.  Unit 12 in House 4 on Sloane Street, Chelsea is a fifth story walk-up. The rooms are neat and clean and well appointed but dated. Carolyn and Vasilis have the twin bedroom, Philip has a fold up bed in the living room, and Donna and I the master suit.  Pretty funky, but with two baths and such a great location, we'll likely be quite happy here.

We walked around the Chelsea area until Carolyn, Vasilis and Philip returned from the Soccer Game they attended.While out, we found a Saturday market where we bought a loaf of bread. The market was in Duke of York Square where we discovered Partridges, a lovely local grocery store and stocked up on some basics for breakfast.  We met the kids at the apartment and went out to dinner at a neighborhood Mediterranean restaurant. I'll grab the camera and will post again when I have fresh eyes and a fresh mind on tomorrow/s schedule.