Day 13

Day 13 We awoke needing a quick shower and back to the airport. We stopped for breakfast a lovely American breakfast which ended up costing more than R300 the most expensive breakfast I have ever had. We boarded our next KLM flight without a hitch. 12 hours and we would be home. We found our seats to have the best seats in the plane. Lyndsay did a great job pre booking and getting us seats right in the front row which meant we had no one in front of us and about a meter leg room. Lyndsay was very disappointed that she didn’t get a Christmas roast which is what she expected. However she did get Pizza so that wasn’t too bad. Toward the end of the flight we found out that the Soweto Gospel quire was on board and they sang Christmas carols for all the passengers which made the flight quite special. As we landed we looked through the cabin to business class and we saw a familiar face. Bakkies Botha. This made Lyndsay’s holiday it was the cherry on an excessively lavish cake. She got to meet Bakkies Botha! Seriously she got to meet him in person. He is enormous and he looked like he had just come out of a war but none the less a great experience. We had reached SA soil and it was great to be home. Hearing a Zulu accent I wish I could say to was good to hear but it was still fantastic to be home. Graham and Gail were waiting for us when exited the terminal and off went for our 45 minute trip home.

Day 12

Day 12 Our last day in England and we were ready to come home. England and France had been welcoming hosts but it was all drawing to an end. However as it was Christmas eve and were set to arrive on Christmas day we thought it would be a good idea to go to a normal centre and do some shopping. Ryan came to fetch us in his mini cooper bright and early in the morning as he too needed to do some last minute shopping. He brought Olivia and Cameron along but Cameron opted to stay with Joe which was going to guarantee him not getting a present from the shop. This did however mean that Ryan was going to have an opportunity to get his present. So off we went. Fortunately Sandra joined us in the morning because the Mini would have been a bit of a squeeze. We decided to go to the Harlequin which was an affordable centre quite close to Watford. The Harlequin was a typical centre pretty similar to kind we are accustomed to in South Africa. Similar to Canal Walk but not as big. So first mission Ryan had to find something for Natalie. So he bought him self a new pair of adidas trainers. In the mean while we had a mosey through Marx and Spencer where Lyndsay got a new bad to fit absolutely everything in (as it was huge) and she bought me my Christmas present a dress shirt and a tie. There was quite a weird market there they sold raw fish, cell phone covers etc. I could imagine this must have been what the Goodwood market must have once looked like. Olivia was sitting on my shoulders as she was quite tired of walking. In the market she decided she was really hungry and she wanted to eat there and then. We had planned to go to burger king, mostly because they are coming to South Africa and I really wanted to beat the hype. But Olivia insisted she was hungry now. So I took her to the fish store and asked her what she wanted. She promptly said fish is disgusting. So I said well if you are hungry now we can have fish. Or if you can wait we will go to burger king. She opted for burger king. When we arrived at burger king, Lyndsay informed me she really liked the charm bracelet that Ryan got Natalie, so I found a jewellery store and when and found Lyndsay a bracelet only to find out now that I could not have found a more expensive charm bracelet. Pandora Charms. So I bought her a bracelet and one charm of a little puppy as it is meant for special occasions. So burger king was pretty mediocre, we then had to make a move and get back home. So the four of us crammed into Ryan’s mini and back to the house. Joe was kind enough to get us back to the airport so we said our good buys at the airport and off we went to check in. We were really early at Heathrow so we checked in and decided to join Jono at Heathrow 3 terminal, we were 4. We had quite a leisurely lunch at an Italian themed restaurant at the airport. Alas were a bit too leisurely we said goodbye to Jono and rushed off, as Lyndsay and I found ourselves stressing out about missing our plane because we got stuck in to longest check in line possible. Where this child was kicking and screaming endlessly to the point that I began to think are these people kid napping them. Then of course I set off all the sensors. I had to take off my shoes my belt. Eventually though I made it through. Lyndsay and I made it to our line and we were able to breathe. We boarded our KLM flight back to Amsterdam and one and a half hours later we arrived. KLM slights have best waffles they give everyone. They were possibly the best waffles I have ever had. We had a 10 hour stopover in Amsterdam. This time we had booked a hotel the Ibis Hotel which was very nice. In my opinion the best hotel we had stayed at. Other then the Le Pierre which had the view of the mountain. A clean room nice shower and soft bed was all we needed as were just there to get some sleep. While we were waiting for the shuttle service to come fetch us and take us to the hotel we met a women from London. We asked her where she from and she informed us she was from Enfield in London. We were like oh we were there just the other night we walked through when we left the stoke game. She looked agasp! You weren’t walking around at night were you? She said astonished. We said yes we were trying to find a station, she responded you can’t to do that it’s not safe. We had a bit of a chuckle to ourselves and thought you live you learn. We arrived at the hotel and settled in for the night. Amsterdam is great it really is very beautiful and clean. It’s nice to be able to understand the mother tongue thanks to Afrikaans. Really a good experience however short.

Day 11

Day 11 Talk about a mystical experience and the hype of Harrods exploded as we stood like crazy fans waiting to get in to do our last minute Christmas shop. That is if we can afford something in that castle. Harrods only opened at 11:30 so as soon as the doors opened we rushed up the elevator to the Disney section as Olivia (Ryan and Natalie’s daughter) wanted to try on Cinderella’s glass slipper. Once there a prince fitted the slipper on Olivia’s foot but they never had her size. It sounds like she was one of the unfortunate ones not to marry her prince Charming. Instead she went to the mirrored Ballroom where she could try on any Disney character’s dress and spin around while you were waited on hands and foot by people dressed up in the tuxedo’s to assist you. Olivia walked away with a Repunzell dress with a hair piece extension just like her Disney hero. They certainly didn’t have this type of experience in my day. We passed Toy Story and Cars characters which just added to the adventure of Disneyland. I headed straight for Harrods pet store. This is for the Rich and Famous, where they take the dogs to the parlour to be groomed so they could be fit for the Queen. I must admit I thought that their dogs weren’t worth the price that they paid. One thing was for sure I was going to buy my little babies Christmas prezzies here, at Harrods! Duke and Bear got spoilt but the weirdest thing occurred while I wanted to pay. They told me that they could only accept my money at 12:00 and not a minute before. They had this strange law about only working for 6 hours on a Sunday. So there Brian and I stood like monkeys wanting to pay but couldn’t for 10 minutes. Finally the clock struck 12:00 and we could pay. The Harrods experience was amazing to say the least. We went down an escalator to the food court for lunch and Brian turned to me to say that the Singing over the speakers were Spectacular. Only then did he realise that it was a live Opera singer singing from her balcony to all the visitors of Harrods. What can we say, a different class altogether! Once at the Disney food court the children each received Mickey or Minney Mouse’s ears to get into the spirit of the day. The menu was spectacular with Disney castles and Tinkerbell printed on everything. Brian ordered a Chicken Mayonnaise sandwich with a Cranberry Lemonade while I ordered a Cheese pancake and a Cranberry Lemonade. My Pancake arrived with a Mickey Mouse’s head sprinkled on it with Paprika. Wow it looked special and it added to the entire mystical experience. This was until the bill came. Would you believe my Pancake came to 11, 50 Pounds alone forget the rest of the order. Never in my life have I had an R 190 pancake and juice. That just made me laugh, when Brian and I paid R 450 for our sandwiches. Thankfully we didn’t have to pay Ryan and Natalie’s bill as that was a joke. Well at least this doesn’t happen every day, a once in a lifetime experience for sure! No Harrods experience would be complete without tea and scones. After walking around in the castle as it is huge, the size I cannot explain. Visiting the harry potter Toy store, Jonathan and Brian boxing against one another while the crowd gathered to support them and cheer for them. Brian felt like a true victor after beating Jono. Once again the scones were very well priced at 6 Pounds for one scone and jam. So needless to say the little jam jars were going into my handbag as souvenirs. Brian got very excited when he saw a tv that he would love to buy until he saw the price- 81 000 pounds. Who in their right mind would pay over 1 million Rand for a tv. Finally it was time to leave after walking around Harrods for 5 hours as this was talking its toll on everyone. Ryan and Natalie got a shock of their lives when they had to pay 45 Pounds just for parking, thankfully we came by underground. As we left Harrods our next adventure was the London Eye. Marching around London what seemed to be late at night but it was only 5 o’clock in the evening. Once we arrived at the Eye we were great full to receive a discount of one person if we filled in a form. So that is exactly what we did so we borrowed a foreigner’s pen that could barely speak a word of English. The Eye was spectacular but first we went into another 4D cinema of how the London Eye was built and the history of London which included all the London sights seem from the Eye. The 4D cinemas are definitely something special. Just like the Eye itself. It was light up as the sun had already set. The blue light of the London Eye was resonating over the Thames River with Westminster Abbey glowing in the background in all its glory. It took approximately 30 minutes for one revolution of the Eye which was the perfect length as it gave you enough time to see Buckingham palace, Saint Pauls Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, London Tower and plenty other attractions that you could see from 900 m up in the air. Jonathan suffered a little bit as he is petrified of heights and he found himself sitting in the middle of the carriage staring at the floor so I am not sure how much he saw of London city centre light up at night. After buying some more London souvenirs we boarded the slow train back to Carpenders Park, Watford. Another day down and one more day to go.

Day 10

Day 10 The long and action packed days were taking its toll on us and Sandra and Joe’s accommodation was making it easy for us to lie in bed and read. This was very different from France where we were up and adam by 6:30. Today is the day where the excitement has been built up since we bought our Spurs vs Stoke tickets on line. For those of you who don’t know who it is. I is a football match at White Hart Lane. Jonathan is an avid Stoke fan so this was a major highlight for him but he had to keep is excitement under wraps as we were sitting in the Spurs fans side and they take their football very seriously. If you are caught supporting opposition who knows what amount of damage you could suffer, whether it be emotional or physical. We set off on our journey after wonderful conversation with James and Hayley while we were waiting for Joe to take us in his Jaguar to the train station. This seems to be an everyday occurrence, not that I mind. Following the crowd made it easier to find the station, thankfully it held 35 000 people and we were all heading in the same direction. WHITE HART LANE home to the Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club. Once we were standing outside the stadium on this overcast miserable day, everyone dressed in their winter woollies, beanies, scarves, Spurs jerseys over their thick coats, food was on the agenda. Talk about being well organised! We stood in the queue for not even 5 mins for our hamburger and chips. These they don’t sell inside the stadium which I thought was strange as we stand for hours to get our hotdogs when we went to Soccer city in Johannesburg to watch Linkin Park. These hamburgers were the biggest that I have ever seen or tried to eat, my mouth couldn’t even get a quarter of the way when I tried to bite it. Once that hit the spot Jonathan asked for some cold drink, so he took out his wallet for some pounds and Brian pipes up “ Gee Jono you have a lot of money, you must be rich” at the top of his voice. Talk about a silly thing to say and that is asking for riff raff to come and mug you. This definitely proved that Brian was a tourist novice. Now I definitely felt like a sheep following the heard into the stadium, going into slaughter, especially when you had to enter into the stadium. The vertical gate is only 50cm wide so it was a struggle for me to get in even when I was turned sideways. I don’t know how Jono and Brian felt squeezing in to the stadium. One thing I did notice is that they don’t sell any alcohol 15 minutes before the game has started. This is to stop all the hooligans during the game and causing trouble with the opposition. Our seats were stunning but the field was a lot smaller than on TV. The chorus of “COME ON YOU SPURS” resonated around the entire football pitch. Brian and I were wearing our newly acquired Spurs caps to try and blend in and screaming at the top of our lungs, while Jonathan just sat there soaking up the atmosphere wearing his Stoke city jersey underneath his closed jacket. There were some great shots and pretty talented individuals but unfortunately the result was 0 – 0. So I was a little disappointed that we never saw a goal. The experience was well worth it though. Only next time I would love to see my team Man United play at the Theatre of Dreams. When it came time to depart, the sun had set so the journey back to the train station looked very different. Needless to say we just followed the crowd again but to our dismay the crowd was not going to the train station where we arrived from. Eventually after walking in a rather dodgy area we realised that they we taking us in the wrong direction through Enfield. This area is not safe at night and it has a lot of let’s say interesting people walking around. This is where common sense had to play a major part in our survival. Thankfully we found a train station and caught the very next train out of there without any scary stories to tell and managed to make our way back to Sandra and Joe’s. Next thing on the agenda for the evening was for us to pay Sandra and Joe back for all their kindness shown to us throughout the past few days. They wanted us to go to a Fish and Chip shop for an “English” as Brian was going on about an “English” since the moment the plane touched down. It was a stunning fish Restaurant visited by plenty of famous people over the years. I know exactly why, their food was stunning and to die for. I even tried some and that says something as it was fish with chips and traditional mushy peas. A typical English meal and it was very well priced considering France and especially Paris. Conversation flowed and reminiscing about old stories from when my parents were first dating was on the topic of conversation. Great laughs and memories certainly filled the spirit for the night. Another action filled day came and went.