Travel Diary Day 1 - Turning 50 London on a Budget

This trip was supposed to be our 20th wedding anniversary trip in 2021, but CoViD was still opening and closing borders, so we bumped it to celebrate my husband and I turning 50 in 2024.

This was still a bucket list trip.

DAY 1 - TRAVEL TO GATWICK AIRPORT. Norse Air is a budget airline. The rows were so close together, it made Southwest look like 1st Class flying! They actually weigh your checked luggage AND YOUR CARRY-ON! 22# max. My suitcase has never been so light! I didn’t compress my space bags so I’d have souvenir space, but I couldn’t even compress them for the trip home because it would have been too heavy! We had to buy a duffel and put compressed clothes in there... While in line to check in I watched as the desk agents made some people put their personal item in the template box thing. You know what I mean.... Those free-standing about 6 foot tall things that have a box saying "make suer your luggage fits"... Strangely, they did not make us do that. I had stripped my knapsack down to pretty much only my camera and laptop and there is still no way that it would have fit in the teeny box for “personal item”. It still fit fine under the seat! This is a bag I've used MANY, MANY times to fly and carry as my personal item. BUT! On the non-stingey side, they did have movie players on the head rests with movies we all had interest in, and the food actually smelled pretty good, but we did not get any. The windows auto-tinted too, but you could still see out. I need to in order to prevent motion sickness. Being able to see helps your brain "figure it out", preventing the onset of vomit. Yeah.

When we landed, we had to take a train from Gatwick Airport to the city center. The airport was small and basic; nothing like any of the super airports here in the states. The restrooms were large, roomy, and clean. The one I hit had frosted glass doors with facilities behind them - including a sink. The space was large enough to change your clothes if you needed to. Then there was a long mirror opposite for makeup application and hair styling. Our flat was 0.9 miles from the train station, on the other side of the London Tower Bridge - the prettier bridge. We had to walk that with our luggage, through tourists. That was fun (NOT). Our flat was a small 2 room set up, like an efficiency. The 1st room had the "den" with pullout sofa, the kitchen and eating table. There was a wall with a hole that went to the next "room" that had a quenn sized bed on the right and oppoiste was the door to the restroom with a TINY shower (like a phone booth), the toilet and teeny sink. The location was good though. There were tube stations nearby as well as an affordable restaurant around the corner and a grocery store nearby as well. The place ended up having a mold problem that the owner wouldn't address. He even asked that we didn't say anything about it on the rental site. We were afraid of retribution so hubs gave a mid review and gave 3 stars, but we would NOT recommend that place. We've used Air B N B, VRBO, and others without a single incident; received glowing reviews from the owners and we also had glowing reviews for the places we've stayed, but this place was literally a health hazard with the mold. It was mold ALL UP under the sink cabinet, coating the cabinet walls and smelled up the space. We did open the front window and the 2 skylights to try and air it out, but we couldn't sleep like that. SO GROSS! But I digress.

After we dropped of our luggage, we ate lunch at the restaurant around the corner - Wetherspoons - before we toured the Tower of London, which fell short on my expectations. It had such a notorious reputation through history as a prison, but it was - idk - meh. I mean it was also used as a luxury palace for 500 years, but yeah...