In route to Olso Norway

So happy to have Randy, Jessie, and family transport us to San Fransisco Airport. Gary is relaxing in the lounge. We have an American Express card that allows access to various airport lounges. This is a fun way to kill time at the airports, searching out the best lounges. We discovered Virgin Atlantic, uncrowded, overlooking the runways and San Francisco Bay.

We are so technologically challenged at times. Gary is attempting to access the lounge online menu app. We have discovered more and more European restaurants are using online apps now for the menu and ordering. This makes menu changes simple for the restaurant and ordering easy for the customer – if they understand how to use the system. Perhaps Bay Area restaurants are using this method as well, we just don’t dine out much at home.

We are in London, our first stop over. Our original flight direct out of London to Oslo was cancelled a week before we left. As customary, we are spending the night at the Premier Inn Terminal 4 which was reopened in June after a nearly two-year closure due to Covid restrictions. This hotel is comfortable, quiet, and walkable from within the airport via an enclosed walkway. The hotel food isn’t the best, so we walk over to the Hilton for a meal. Having a late lunch, early dinner, not so sure………….. The indoor courtyard of the Hilton is spacious with high ceilings, comfortable, and decent food. I get sort of claustrophobic after so many hours inside the airport and plane.

We wandered out around the hotel grounds discovering the gardens for the Hilton hotel restaurant.

Then off for a good walk to move our bodies after being stationary for many hours, to help with the time change, and hopefully with sleeping. Turns out not the prettiest walk ever, along the highway traffic, made much less attractive by the intense brownness everywhere. London has had one of the worse heatwaves in history over the last week or so. I have never seen the city brown like this, reminds me of the hills of California during the summer where everything is dry and colorless from the heat of the sun and lack of rain.

So much for the walking tiring us out and helping with sleep. We woke up at 2:00 am…………. Wide awake, tried to keep quiet and still, to shut off the brain, unsuccessful. Finally, we both got up and did wordle puzzles on our phones for an hour and then successfully went back to sleep. Jet-lag can be brutal. The time change from California to Europe is 8 hours in London and 9 in mainland Europe. It takes a few days to adjust.

Some of the travel tricks we have learned over the years.

We carry good (silicon) earplugs to block out airplane rumbling, air conditioning vibrations, traffic, partner snoring, any general chatter that can disrupt sleeping.

I have written about this before, it serves to be mentioned again, uniquely identify electronics. We once watched a frantic young woman running around the airport terminal in Hawaii searching for her computer which was inadvertently picked up by another passenger believing it was his. Fortunately, the terminal was small, and she was able to locate her computer and make the switch. Airport security is often crowded with everyone rushing around to get to their gate. (Only to wait in yet another line, but that is a different story.) If you get hung up going through the security screener because you forgot to take off a metal bracelet or left something in a pocket, your belongings continue on ahead on the conveyor without you. Some airports require electronics to be placed separately in a bin which then look the same as all the other bins containing laptops or pads all running through the security system. Thus, we put stickers on computers to easily identify them. Also, a good idea for readers, pads, anything that has a very generic look and could be mistakenly identified.

I always carry food. It is so easy to get hung up in long queues, delays, unplanned diversions and suddenly there is no time to get anything to eat, then we find ourselves hungry and grumpy. I carry energy bars or nuts for such occasions.

And what do you know, this is exactly what happened in London Heathrow airport on our departure to Oslo. What a crazy zoo that airport is. I guess because of limited staffing many of the normal entry points for security were closed. We were in the Fast Track line, and it was anything but fast. Although the other line was at least 4 rows deep and the entire length of the corridor long. I doubt we would have made our flight if we had needed to be in that line. Needless to say, after passing security, we had to go directly to the gate, only to wait again, and didn’t have time to get our planned lunch. Munched our our packed snacks.