South Africa Trip : Blog 1

Ahhhh...I'm sitting here in our Fred house, with my Poppy laying right next to me...watching Big Bang Theory and waiting for Chris to get back from his Sunday run. It's been such a lovely weekend. We drove down on Friday and had dinner at Sozial Haus -- mmmm! Saturday, Chris did a bike ride and then we went to had our free glass of Grape Creek wine :) Afterwards, we did some shopping along Main and found some goodies! We found some beautiful ceramics to add to our little nook (see Instagram for pics!!). The nook is turning out very cute! After lunch at the Brewery, we spent a few hours at home with Poppy and the internet :) We finally decided on some furniture and made the purchases online!! We bought: a couch; an accent chair; a coffee table; and a living room rug. I posted the couch on Instagram, but you'll have to wait to see the rest! I want to get it all in and set up to make sure it all looks good together before showing it all :)

I wanted to start documenting our big South Africa trip -- it will take awhile for me to get it all down, but gotta start somewhere!

Saturday, August 25 / Sunday, August 26

We dropped Poppy off at Mimi's and said our goodbyes...then we drove to Dallas for our late night flight. We got through security just fine and waited for our flight. Everything was on time, and we took off for London! It was about a 9 hour flight and man that is a long time on a plane!!! We had lots of movies to watch and books to read. And we tried to snooze a bit too.

When we landed in London, we had about an 8 hour layover. Building in time to get out and back in through security, we figured we had a few hours to spend touring London. Prior to our trip, we purchased tickets for the Heathrow Express, which took us from the airport to Paddington Station. From there, we had tickets for a Big Bus London double decker bus tour that you can jump on/jump off of wherever you want. Big Sad Face -- we came out of Paddington Station to walk to Oliver Steakhouse to catch the tour bus...and it was POURING RAIN. Not just a nice mist, but POURING. We didn't really know where we were going, so we wandered around in the rain until we finally found it. Finally the bus arrived, and we got on. No one was on the top deck because of the rain, so that was sad. We proceeded to ride around London, peering at what we could through the rain soaked windows. We saw a little bit, but not much. We had plans to get off at one specific stop so that we could take a short walk to Buckingham Palace -- well, the bus didn't even stop!! Just drove right on by. I was so upset!! That was the one thing we wanted to see. Blah. So, we basically finished up the ride on the bus and got back off at Paddington Station.

It was NOT exactly what I had hoped for, sadly. We'll have to make another trip to London some day so that we can really experience it...in more than four hours!

Back at the station, we stopped for some coffee and then the restrooms...which, unfortunately, were PAY toilets and we didn't have any cash. So, we just got back on the Heathrow Express and made it back to the airport where we waited for our next flight, to Cape Town, South Africa.

The London airport was interesting...everyone sits together in a big holding room until gates are listed for your flight when it's time to start boarding. It was a big open room, kind of circular...surrounded on the perimeter with shops and restaurants. We ate at one of the restaurants and looked at the shops. There was a Cath Kidston shop and I was so excited! I have loved her stuff for years, but since it is a London based store I've never purchased anything. I loved everything in the store!!! I decided I would get a purse but would wait until we came back through on our journey home.

Our flight to Cape Town was slightly delayed...but then we got on and took off on our next long leg which was about 12 hours. Very very long time on a plane. When we landed, they let about 30 of us off first so we could try to make our connecting flight to Port Elizabeth...sadly, we had to get our luggage and recheck it, and by the time we did that it was too late...we had missed our flight. They were able to get us another flight about three hours later, so we hung out in the airport and met a nice guy named Jeff that we chatted with (he was also doing the race.)

The flight to Port Elizabeth was about an hour and a half, and then we were finally at our final destination!!! We were met there by QLefty!!!!!! So, next blog will take it from there :)