Other than Hawaii, we had not travelled with our kids outside of Canada. This was our first vacation abroad. Sidney was 9 1/2, Allie almost 13 and Robin 19.

We took Air Canada overnight from Calgary to London. I tried to sleep but the two girls were too excited and stayed awake watching the Harry Potter movie which they had already seen. Scott and Robin stayed awake to drink the free alcohol being served.

We  took the Heathrow Express and then the tube to get to our B & B, James and Carteret House on Ebury Street in Belgravia. Travelling through the tube system was an education. At one point, Robin jumped on a train before all of us were at the platform. Seeing he was going to leave without us, he got off but my carry on bag which he had got caught in the train door. As the train was about to leave, the door wouldn’t open and Robin was tugging on the bag trying to free it. Some guy inside the train kicked the bag through the door. Lucky escape since my bag had all our theatre tickets and other booking information in it.

We needed something to help keep everyone awake so took the double decker hop on hop off bus. We sat on top to get some fresh air and sunlight. We didn’t do much hopping off.

As we drove around, people were falling asleep. I had to hold Sid’s head to keep her from falling off her seat.

We went to Harrod’s where I bought shoes. They charged a pound to use the bathrooms.

As we were walking back towards our B & B, we were looking for somewhere to have dinner. Met the Spackmans, who we were going to see later in the trip, doing the same thing. We all ended up at the Shakespeare pub.