Travel Diary - Turning 50 London

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

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... They made some people put their personal item in the template box thing. They did not have us do that. I 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”. BUT! They did have movie players on the head rests and the food actually smelled pretty good, but we did not get any. The windows auto-tinted too, but you could still see out.

When we landed, we had to take a train from Gatwick Airport to the city center. 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. That was fun (NOT). Our flat was a small 2 room set up. 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. There was mold ALL UP under the sink cabinet. SO GROSS! But I digress.

We ate lunch at the restaurant - 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...

My camera also decided to freak out and not focus. I gave up and took a lot of pix with my phone. At some point we took a bathroom break and I fiddled with it again - fixing whatever the issue was. Sophie and John went to the grocery when we got back. I fell asleep before they left. Chloe also ended up falling asleep shortly after they left. We had noodles and meat sauce for dinner.