7/13/11

Day 2
London

We joined the two on the two block walk to the Contiki basement from the tube station. Where we checked our luggage and sent out emails to everyone at home. We bought tickets to the Original Bus Tour. Took the blue bus to a stop in Piccadilly Circus (aka circle) where the 4 of us found lunch at the Imperial. I had fish and chips with bottled water! Our two new friends are a brother and sister from California! After lunch we caught the yellow bus tour where we took tons of pictures then got off at the London Eye. They had tickets so we headed back on the bus to finish out the tour. Amanda fell asleep during it, and my camera died. So I took hers while she was asleep. After that was over I grabbed a coffee from Starbucks and we headed back. The coffee was disgusting. Even Starbucks!!! It was watery... We ran into 4 girls on another Contiki tour on the bus back to the hotel they left a few days after us. Once back in the room I showered and then it was time for our 7pm meeting. We got our info and met Erin and Liz from Connecticut, Luke from Australia and Katie from Virginia who I met and talked to on Facebook beforehand. We went to the pub next door to the hotel for diner and they got drinks. I had a southern fried chicken burger... aka burned chicken lol We hung out there til about 9 then went to the room. After 10pm we went to bed. *

*info left out... :P

7/12/11

Day 1 Travel Day

Orlando. Miami. London.

Got up at 6:30am showered went to tan one last time then finished getting ready. Left the house at ten. Half way to Miami I woke up from a nap and noticed a rash on my arms. great... just my luck. I break out in hives Im so anxious and nervous. well its better than throwing up.

got to the airport at 2:45 and breezed through security meaning we are sitting in the terminal waiting for six thirty. at five fifteen we started boarding. once on the plane i started watching country strong. for dinner i had chickenwith some sort of rice with salad cheese crackers and a brownie. after that i took two benadryl and tried to sleep. it didnt go so well. the benadryl didnt knock me out or help with the hives. i got about a total fo two hours of sleep. in the morning aka seven am on the plane two am at home they served breakfast of a biscuit with cheese and egg a banana and orange juice. after we arrived we spent an hour and a half going through customs then went for our bags. once on the tube we met a girl studying in london from the us after we got off we overheard these two people asking directions to the hotel we were staying in. they were here for contiki as well just not our tour.

posted from my kindle. i apologixe for mistakes amd all that good stuff...

7/12/11

Okay... so we are leaving for the Miami International Airport (yes it's abbreviated MIA... I know. Funny...) around 10am. We have to be at the airport no later than 3:30pm for our flight at 6:30pm. We get served dinner for sure and possibly breakfast on the plane! Huzzah! :P

I'm nervous as all get out, but I'm trying not to think about it. When I woke up at 6:30am this morning the first thing I thought about was "OMG in 12 hours I'll be on the airplane! Holy crap!"... but for some reason it still seems surreal to me, like something's gonna happen to make us not go, or some random thing is going to make us miss meeting up with the tour group or something. I know, I know, I'm paranoid... always. lol

But we've got a 4-5 hour car ride down to Miami which I will be filling with reading (to calm my nerves) and randomly pointing out airplanes over us and saying "OMG Look! We'll be on one of those in (insert appropriate amount of time here) hours!!" To which Amanda, Dad and Melanie will all roll their eyes and laugh at me. :P But I'm okay with that.

I'll try my best to post as soon as we get to the London-Heathrow airport to let everyone know we made it, but if you don't hear from me right away, don't freak. ;)

P.s. It'll be 3:30am Eastern time when we arrive there, so I don't expect anyone to be awake. Oh!! Don't bother texting me while I'm gone. My phone will be left here. If you want to talk to me send me a MESSAGE on Facebook. I'll be more likely to respond to that when I find internet vs. any other means of communication. Much love and I'll see you all in a few weeks!!! <3

7/11/11 -- 2

So... had another mini-heart attack this morning...

One of the girls posted something about their kick-start meeting TONIGHT. I started freaking out thinking There's no way the meeting can be tonight! I'm not in London yet!! So I pulled out my travel documents and sure enough, everything said our departure date (the date we LEAVE London) is the 13th, theirs is the 12th... Sooooooooo long story short, we called Contiki to verify that there wasn't a misprint and come to find out, all the people that I THOUGHT were going to be on the trip with us... aren't. Lovely. :(

7/11/11

So, yesterday I was on my way home from Church when Amanda texted me "My plane will be arriving there at 3." So I was like, "Okay, Cool!" Then headed off to drop off lunch at the house, tan then go to Barnes & Noble for a travel journal and to check on books to download on my Kindle. I didn't think anything of her text until I was sitting in the Starbucks waiting on my coffee when she texted again, "I lied. It'll be more like 2:30. The flight is about 58 minutes long and we're leaving here in like 5. lol" Now after this one I got a little confused. She wasn't supposed to get here until tomorrow. It was now 1:30 so I said, "Not today right?" and she said "...Yes today." Here is when I started freaking out. I called Melanie and let her know and booked it home. We quickly googled how to get to the airport (She was flying in from a smaller one than OIA) then headed there to pick her up.

Of course there was squealing, hugging, and all that normal excited stuff. :)
We packed our suitcases last night (finding out Amanda could actually fit all her stuff in a smaller one! :O Surprise, surprise!!) and today we just have last minute stuff. I'm getting my hair cut, phone unlocked (so it can go international), and then a Target run so we make sure we've got all the little stuff we will need.

Excited is a HUGE understatement at this point. (Yes, I did get up at 7am when I don't have to be up for another couple of hours... :P)

7/9/11

I'm testing this to see if I can post from my Kindle. If so, it will make updating about my trip so much easier. Fingers crossed!!!

6/26/11

I got my packet from Contiki the other day! But, just today did I get the time to read through it. I bookmarked the pages in the travel guide for the cities and countries we're going to and I highlighted some of the suggested places to visit in free time. The more we talk about it, the more excited I get!

Tomorrow will mark 2 weeks before we leave for London! I'm counting down the days!

On a side note: my foot is way better. I'm done wrapping it, and it hasn't given me any trouble yet! :D