London Day 3-Norway

As hard it was after just four hours of sleep, we pulled ourselves out of bed at 7:30 a.m., grabbed breakfast, and hit the door to make the most out of the last two hours we had to sightsee. We jumped on the tube at Paddington Station and got on the Jubilee Line to St. John's Wood. Our destination goal was Abbey Road Studios. For those that don't know, Abbey Road is where the Beatles did nearly all of their recording. Thousands of other classic recordings were made here as well.

All along the front wall, people have written graffitti tributes to the Beatles.No one could think of leaving without re-creating the famous Beatles album cover crossing the street in front of Abbey Road.

By this time, it was about 9:30 a.m. We had planned to leave the hotel by 10:15 to make our way to the airport. The one place we didn't yet see was Buckingham Palace. We thought, it's tight, but we can make it if everything goes well. Little did we know - but more about that later.

We made it to Buckingham Palace and had a nice walk around.


We did it! We checked everything off everyone's list that they wanted to see. It's now after 10:00 a.m. (remember, we were supposed to leave the hotel at 10:15 a.m. and we're nowhere near the hotel), but we are still feeling good about making it to the airport. Then, everything that could go wrong did. It would be too much to type, it was so many things. Here's a short video clip to give you the rundown:

Having extra time at London's Heathrow airport wasn't all bad. There were two hard-to-find things in the US that I had wanted to pick up in London, but didn't have time to - some English shaving oil and a new Europe travel book by Michael Palin. I got both at Heathrow. It doesn't take much to make me happy.
The flight to Oslo, Norway went well, although the seats were a tight squeeze. I sat next to a big guy who I will affectionately refer to as Elbows. That alone should give you an idea about the tightness of the quarters.
After all of the things that had gone wrong today, I was so thankful to see our driver at the Oslo airport as we came out of customs. On the two hour drive from Oslo to Sandefjord, we stopped for pizza. See the picture below? This was taken at 10:30 p.m. here. It was still partially light when we arrived at the hotel at 1:00 a.m., and never did get completely dark all night.

We are at a nice hotel, the Rica Park, overlooking the harbor. It's a beautiful night. But once again, it's late, late, late! Fortunately, we have no committments until tomorrow night. I'll do my best to sleep in. Thanks for sharing the experience with me.