Dublin, Ireland—London, England—Day 201

Despite my hangover this morning, I was able to get up at the god-awful hour of 6:30am, pack, say goodbye to Kim, check out of the hotel and make my way to the airport for my flight to London. I was excited because my family all lives in England (yes, ALL of them and no, I don’t have a British accent because I was raised in America) and my aunt, uncle and cousins were going to pick me up at the airport.

Plus, it was an E.U. flight, meaning that I was flying from one European Union country to another which meant that I wouldn’t have to go through customs. Muahaha.

Sure enough, my aunt, uncle and cousins were there to meet me at the airport. We got my things and headed over to rent a car so that I could get to the zoos tomorrow since both are zoos in which you drive through and must have a car. So I rented a car AND a mobile phone (just in case something happened to me) and about an hour later we were all on our way over to my uncle’s mother’s house for lunch.

We went out for lunch to a nearby pub. While we waited for our food Jane (my aunt), Melanie (my cousin—not to be confused with Melanie yesterday) and Kweku (my other cousin) and I went on a walk along the canal near the pub. It was all nice and sunny at first but then the clouds quickly gathered overhead and it started to pour with rain. We found refuge under a tree and then ran back through the drizzle to our food which was waiting for us.

We had lunch and said goodbye to Jane, Henry (my uncle), Kweku and Mel as they headed off on a vacation to Ireland (we swapped places!) and I stayed at Alizon’s (my uncle’s mother) while I waited for my other aunt, uncle and cousin (Jo, Jake and Roo) to pick me up to go to their house for the night.

Confused yet?

Anyways, Jo, Jake and Roo showed up and we headed to their flat in downtown London, attempting to stop at an IKEA before but unfortunately missing the turn. Luckily I wasn’t driving—I did for a bit but then almost killed me, Jo and Roo so I ended up swapping so that Jake drove my car. Ok, almost killing them is an overstatement but we all agreed that things would be a lot more, er, better off if I let Jake drive my car through London traffic.

We made it back to their awesome new flat, cleaned it up a bit (they’re renting out an extra room that thy have) and eventually had dinner after two prospective renters came to check out the flat.



(c) 2004 Sarah Galbraith. All Rights Reserved.