Day 1: London

“See this machine?  It’s only as good as this squeegee here.”  Now read that again with a British accent that sounds almost exactly like Ricky Jervais from The Office or Shaun of the Dead.

I feel like I’m surrounded by actors.  Everyone at Heathrow sounds like Hugh Grant or Ricky Jervais or Cate Blanchett.  Even the janitor going around with the squeegee machine seems like an actor in disguise.

Well, today didn’t quite go as planned, but we’re happy nonetheless.

The plan?  Arrive at London’s Heathrow airport this morning, store our luggage, and then explore the city for a day before flying out for Bucharest around 6 pm.

The reality?  We arrive late, no one knows anything about the luggage storage area we found online, Susie gets lost (or did we?), the kids get tired and fall asleep on the benches, and now we’ve been sitting around here for 5 hours, exploring the airport in a zombified daze and imagining what Windsor Castle must look like.

On the plus side, Mae overcame her fear of airplanes and escalators, we all enjoyed calling elevators “lifts,” a woman in a language none of us understood gave our kids toy trucks, we met a cool Russian couple, and we had a really fun hysterical family laughing time when Jessie forgot to put the brakes on Isaac’s stroller while parked on a ramp.

And we get to feel like we’re surrounded by British actors.  Not a bad thing.

Well, the kids are all awake now, and we’ve still got a few hours left here, so I think we’ll go and see what we can do.