Over the pond

Well, the flight over was pretty easy.  It was a "sleeper" flight, so there were no meals served or announcements so you could go right to sleep (or try to) and sleep the flight away.  BA business class is pretty good, you've got a seat that fully reclines and you have enough space to lie on your side comfortably.  Still, sleeping on a plane isn't exactly easy, but I think we both managed to get some sleep.  It's 7:20 PM here and I feel pretty good, and have all day.  The plan is to try to get to sleep pretty early so we'll be ready tomorrow.  But it's still very light so I don't know when the sun will go down.

It took us a little bit to get the GPS to work the way we wanted, and even after that we didn't have an actual street address for the B&B (I don't think it has one, it's a 700 year old house (at least the oak foundations) on a little lane.  We kept stopping and asking for directions, and each time got directions to a different place.  I finally remembered that there was a map on the web site that I had printed, so I dug it out of the suitcase and after a few false starts we found the place.  It's quite picturesque and quaint and the room is very comfortable.

 

It is a bit away from Windsor, but since we had a car that wasn't a problem.

Then I discovered that the UK SIM card that I purchased wasn't activated.  After several phone calls I got that straightened out, but by the time I did the main office was closed and I couldn't top it up with my US credit card in the automated system.  So I've still got that hurdle to get by tomorrow.

After we found our B&B, we went to a local pub for lunch.  It wasn't bad, but nothing to write home about (wait, I guess I am writing home about it).

Then it was off to Windsor Castle.

Getting there was pretty easy, finding a place to park, not so much.  But we finally found a lot, parked the car and went off to explore the castle.  Unfortunately by the time we got there, it was only 3 hours to closing, so we had to skip through pretty quickly.  But that was probably a good thing, since after 3 hours we were ready to take a load off anyway.  They don't let you take pictures inside the castle, so I don't have any pictures of the really interesting things like the Queen's Doll House and the State Apartments.  If you've never heard of the Queen's Doll House it really fascinating.  It's a 1/12 replica of the Queen's apartments and everything in it is a real replica, not just a fake.  The sheets on the beds were made by the same people that made the regular sheets, the faucets are hooked up to real hot and cold running water, the books in the library are leather bound and have the actual book contents inscribed in miniature inside (this last one is pretty hard to believe, but the guide swears it's true).  There's even an upright hooker vacuum cleaner that actually works.

So we left the Castle, sat in the Sun for a bit, then had dinner and back to the B&B.  Relaxing for a bit, then off to bed to prepare for tomorrow.