Monday
Time to leave New York and head to Dublin via London.
A really huge THANK YOU with all of our love to Annie and Ben for looking after us in the US, we cannot say enough for all that they have done.
As is usual we went out for breaky and also for lunch, how good is this all within 5 mins walk of the apartment in The Village.
A very simple day, washing, packing and then just getting ourselves to the airport. All went according to plan, picked up on time, good run to the airport. Checked in and cleared security customs etc all without a hitch.
Boarded on time, and then sat there for some 50 minutes on the tarmac, before we took off. Not so bad though as we landed on schedule at Heathrow on Tuesday morning.
Tuesday
Negotiated the varying and confusing escalators and myriads of corridors at Heathrow terminal 5 successfully and got thru immigration OK, as we approached the baggage pick up which was the furthest point away in the hall, I could see that our bags were quite happily going around on the belt, phew - great sigh of relief as Heathrow lose more luggage than any other airport.
Out to the Rail ticket office and onto the train to our nephew Matt's apartment. One change of line and we were there at his nearest station. A short bus ride with the Oyster cards (Metro Card in the US, Metro in France, Octopus in HK, MTR card in Singapore - oh and guess what stuff all in Australia - in Sydney at least).
Back to Matt and Chrystal's for a cuppa then sort out the day. For them the removalists will be picking up most of all their worldly possessions to return to OZ. Win decided that a sleep was in order, I decided that Dr Who was in order (read about this in a separate post).
Matt suggested that we should head to a local watering hole "The Albion" if I recall, so after a local pint of bitter, and a pint of cider (for me at least), we headed to a street that Win had lived in when she was in her teens after moving back from OZ. Then onto a lovely local French Restaurant. Not a late night tonight as we need to be up by about 6 to get ourselves sorted and out the door.
The house where Win lived in Bransbury Park Rd, Islington
View from our Mezzanine level table at the French Restaurant in Islington
Wednesday
Out the door at 8:30 for a short bus trip to Euston Station to catch the 9:10 to Holyhead. Successful half hour bus ride, and arrive at Euston with plenty of time to spare for a bight to eat and coffee.
Some of the beautiful scenery in Wales from the train.
I like this boarded on time and the train left on time. However this was to be short lived as we the train stopped for quite some time in some place in Wales I think, as we dropped some carriages and picked up others - bloody Virgin Trains. This left us late arriving into Holyhead, so we missed our scheduled ferry. However we got the next one which actually sailed earlier as all booked passengers were aboard. A great trip, not too rough, Win was fine, and I enjoyed several Magners Draught Ciders.
So arrived about half hour later than the original schedule which was pleasing. Got a taxi straight up, and as we cleared customs quickly, the guy just asks how long you are staying and stamps the passport I forgot to get some Euro as we got ashore. This could have been an issue paying the driver as he didn't take credit cards, I still had £20, and as the fair was about E16 he was OK with this.
The hotel is right in the heart of the city, so we walked less than 5 minutes to a restaurant "Flanagans", I went with the Beef & Guinness Pie - cannot get anymore traditional than this.
How good is this Beef & Guinness Pie, note the little "shot" of Guinness that is included to add to the Pie
So there we go three countries in three days.
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