Part II-1. Getting into London

Originally, visiting London was not in the plan. This plan, however, was changed after I found the cheapest ticket to Frankfurt stopping over at LHR airport. Since we were already going to be in London, I looked for tickets that had 6+ hour stopover so we could have a chance to go out into the city real quick and see the Big Ben, the London Eye, whatnot. But I couldn't find such ticket, so we had to stay in the airport for 4+ hours. 


Getting into London via airplane was rough, at least for me anyway. I usually don't have any problem sleeping in airplanes, I usually take a nap at least. BUT, I couldn't sleep at all and was awake the ENTIRE way. oh well. About hour before landing they served us with breakfast. Though this was a 'light' meal, it was good nonetheless. Here's are some pics. 

It didn't look that good to start with, because they basically just threw the box at us, but It was quite good actually. The juices that you get in the airplanes are somehow always better than the store-bought ones; maybe that's just me. But that muffin with raisins in it was really good. I don't know about the name of the breakfast box though...

And apparently, Brits like raisins a lot. They just had like a box of raisins in it. I know the raisins are good for you (and they tell you on the box) but unlike Blair Walsh, I can make field goals. I don't know why. It's kind of hard to see, but those little baked-cracker-things on the bottom were good too. 

And... a few minutes later, we landed at London Heathrow International. Before we actually land though, remember I couldn't sleep? So I made a vague (pretty specific, actually) plan of our trip, while my brother was taking a nice nap. This is out of the journal. 

So, here's a rough plan as of right now (morning of Dec. 25th). Spend the night in Frankfurt, go around and see the city on the 26th and get to Heidelberg by the night of 26th. Visit the city/castle of Heidelberg on the 27th and get to Munich. Visit the Neuschwanstein Castle on the 28th in Fussen, Germany, and tour the city Munich until the 29th night when we get to Innsbruck, Austria. After that, Zurich 30th, Geneva 31st & 1st, Paris 2nd & 3rd, Milan 4th & 5th, Venice 6th, and Pisa & Rome on the 7th thru 9th. 

Once again, this was the rough plan AT THAT TIME. This does not guarantee that we went to every city/country on that list. From the start, we did not have any definitive plans except the fact that we were going to start the journey in Frankfurt, and end in Rome, from which we will fly to Korea. First things first, we were going to safely transfer first in London and explore the airport to see what Brits had to offer. 

 I already told you we arrived on this plane. After getting off, I was able to get Boingo Wi-Fi real quick with my phone and called my parents to let 'em know that we safely made it. FYI, Boingo offers $7.95/month plan for up to 3(I think) mobile devices. I used it a lot in public settings such as airports, train stations, even in the train once. I think it was worth it, but you HAVE to call them to cancel this 'recurring' subscription. 

 And we had to take a train to go from the C Gates to the Flight Connections. You'd think we were fresh off the plane and were very excited to be in England, right? Well, I guess my brother may have been, but not me, I was tired feeling as if I had pulled an overnighter (technically, I did).

We didn't get the pic of the train, but it was nothing special. Usual 3-4 cars linked train that you see in Atlanta or other large hub airports. 

 As we got out of the train, the transferring passengers were divided into groups, domestic or international. The airport, so far, looked pretty clean and efficient, and obviously waaay fancier than Atlanta. I really liked these lights. The picture doesn't exactly show the feel of these lights, but they were cool. 








               See? told you they were cool. Maybe not for some of you, but this kind of lighting gives a modern look when used repetitively like the picture below, but also natural feel because the pipes and a/c are exposed. It's 'open' if you will, makes me breathe easier. 

Now that I think back to it, there were a lot of people on a holiday like Christmas. This was kind of surprising because one of the reasons we didn't go into London was because I read that London is 'dead' on Christmas, meaning no transportation. But... I guess some people were busy getting to their homes to unwrap some presents with their kids. 

 We found our Frankfurt flight from one of those big transfer/departure screens and found out that our flight was flying out of the Terminal 5. Pretty much, we showed them the boarding passes and they checked the sizes of our carry-on bags to see if they fit in our new plane... and of course mine didn't. I wanted to keep it, but I had to check it in. This was good AND bad. It was good because I didn't have to watch my bag for 4 hours while my brother carried around his. And it was bad because we wasted a couple of minutes at the baggage claim in Frankfurt later. 


postscript; Just for you guys' info, I can write in detail now that I have a lot of pics to work with; they bring back my memories. And we did take some 3k pics, but some are repetitive and not as detailed as the first few days. And give me some feedbacks (as this post is what the rest'll look like), are these posts too long, short, lacking pics, too much writing? what do you guys think?