The kids are on vacation, again. It is the easter break and we planned a family vacation with Andi's sister and brother-in-law, Jill and Jeff.
The first part of the vacation was to meet up in London for a few days before heading to mainland Europe.
Jill and Jeff traveled from Portland Oregon arriving in London early Saturday morning. The first arrival in London was the Goddard traveling from a work offsite conference in Budapest that week. The remainder of the Goddard clan flew in a couple of hours later. For both sets of Goddard's the flights included minor delays of 30 minutes to an hour.
The late crew from Basel began with some MarktHalle food with Indiana Jones before hitting the Euro Airport in Basel.
I decided I needed a nice dark beer for the road, a porter no-less.
The late flight from Basel to London was tiring as it had been a long day and already 10pm at night.
Once we got to Heathrow getting through immigration with 2 non-EU and non-UK kids proved trickier than usual with only a single chatterbox of an immigration officer on duty. The
delay from immigration meant that when I bought the online tickets for the Heathrow Express, then it was closed for the day, and service would not be resumed until the following morning, or more accurately stated, later that same morning. The underground train on the Piccadilly line was now the only option or a cab.
We took the underground tube since it was right there and other passengers were doing the same. After determining the nearest tube station to the destination address of our rented appartment, which was Temple and only on the district-circle line, we switched lines along the way. Minor mishap, as the last train, which we were on only went as far as South Kensington. So we switched lines back again to the Piccadilly line, these were now the only trains running. Now Covent Garden was the nearest station to our abode so we took that. Reaching there, hauling it on foot overland for about a mile. Eventually, around 2am we arrived!