Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Yesterday was Hello Monday and I am planning to share more details, but here are just some quick thoughts on our trip before I can get to that!

I was a bit vague about our plan before the trip because I felt weird giving all the details for privacy reasons and because I am a bit superstitious and didn’t want to jinx anything – yes, I am weird! 

But, now, in the next few days, I am going to give you all the details – probably more than you want to know. I am even going to tell you exactly how much it cost – as close as I can get, at least. 

The Plan: 

December 19 – Mason moved out of his dorm at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, England and went to our first Airbnb in Liverpool, England by train. We left Louisville for Atlanta and then Atlanta to Manchester, England and took a train to the Liverpool apartment. It was within walking distance of the train station – Score! Our flight landed at 8:11 am and I knew we would want to immediately have a place to go, so this plan worked out great. Liverpool is the closest big city to where he had gone to college. 

December 20- we arrived at apartment at 11 a.m. and got to hug Mason! He had enjoyed his night in the apartment and cooked his dinner and enjoyed having more space to spread out than he had had in the dorm room. Even though none of us had slept on the plane, we rallied and went exploring and had lunch. He and I grocery shopped when Tom and Jack started to fade and headed back to the apartment in the late afternoon. 

December 21 – traveled to Ormskirk, England by train, had lunch there, went back to Liverpool to explore more.

December 22 – headed to York, England and stayed there until the morning of December 24.

December 24-morning of December 27 – Edinburgh, Scotland and spent our Eve and Day there: 

December 27 – Glasgow, Scotland

December 28 – Manchester, England

December 29 – flew home from Manchester, England

We did not make it to London this trip, because we were so close to Scotland we wanted to include that instead. Our next trip will be London and south of England, for sure! The trains don’t run on Christmas Day or Boxing Day, so we knew we had to have a “home base” for those two days and we made reservations for Eve dinner, drinks on Christmas day, and then a restaurant meal on Boxing Day, too, just in case. It worked out great! I don’t always like to have reservations because I think it keeps you from popping into interesting looking places, but we knew we needed some for the holidays. 

Some highlights…

Tolbooth Tavern, Edinburgh meal:

You can see our Airbnb from this vantage point in one of the gates of the wall in York:

Walking the wall in York: 

The trip was better than I had hoped!

We saw the sun more than I thought we would with about 3 sunny days! It didn’t get light out until about 9:00 am and it started getting dark around 3:30! That is something to consider when you travel at this time of year. 

The weather was not colder than here and when we stepped off the plane in Louisville it was much colder than it had been on any day in the UK! My rain jacket was the jacket that I wore the most on the trip. It usually was just a slight drizzle. My kids and I love rain! Did you know that? I also sprayed my sneakers with waterproofing spray and my feet never got wet. 

We stayed in 5 Airbnbs and I now know that Iove Airbnb and the app! Two of our hosts met us with the keys and it was really cool getting to meet locals and actually talk to them. 

Our flights were amazing! We took Delta from Louisville to Atlanta and Virgin Atlantic from Atlanta to Manchester, England. Delta and Virgin have a partnership, so it was sold as all one flight. Our flights were all early. The best flight was on the way back from Manchester to Atlanta – the seatbelt sign never came on and it was so smooth. I am a nervous flyer, but this time I really did great. I know it was due to the great weather while flying and the smooth flights, and maybe a couple of cans of wine? 

I love train travel and we traveled by train from each city to the next with no one train trip lasting longer than 2 hours. I found the tickets easy to buy online or on the apps. We chose tables when we could – two of us facing forward and two backward and a table in between. We had train snacks! I dubbed the term “trainchooterie”. My family didn’t think it was as funny as I did. 

We all got sick, but it was ok – just colds – and we were still able to do everything or most everything we planned.

We made it with carry on only (Mason had a large suitcase that rolled really well and Tom was point person on that along with his carry on and it was fine)

Waiting in one of the train stations and this gives you an idea of what we carted around: 

I packed really well and could have left a few things out but I wore everything at least once. 

Ernie did really well with his dog sitter! We had great peace of mind and communicated often. 

I think 8 days is when we all started to be over travel. This was a 10 day trip. I remember this also being my struggle time during our 12 day trip in Germany. 

I brought Chelsea boots and sneakers and only wore the boots for the first day and one other time. I stuck to sneakers the rest of the time. That’s all I saw on women, too. They all either wore black Chelsea boots of various brands and styles or sneakers.

My plan was to buy a curling iron over there, but I never did. I just wore my hair straight. 

I missed top sheets and washcloths! The beds just had a fitted sheet with a duvet over them. And, we never got or saw a washcloth. Ha!

I am really freaking proud of myself. I planned everything from the flights to the accommodations to the train times and the activities and the reservations for meals. It was a lot of work, but I really do enjoy it. Tom thanked me for planning it all and said I did a really good job. That’s all I need – words of affirmation!

It was a bit tricky when we changed locations because I wanted to arrive in the new place at the time we could check in to our new Airbnb. Most are check in at 3 and check out at 10 or 11. Many hosts will let you either check in early or check out late if you ask. There was only one time that we paid the train station to “watch” our luggage for a couple of hours because we arrived too early and wanted to explore the city centre without luggage and that was in Glasgow. It was fine and most stations offer this service for a small fee.

My family is a family of really great travelers. No one is high maintenance, no one complains, and everyone is really able to go with the flow. Jack is the biggest homebody, but he did great. Mason was great with teaching us what he had learned about the way things are done over there. I loved traveling with Tom, and we make a great team. It was a joy to travel with our adult children, too. 

We can’t wait to be able to plan our next trip! 

Coming tomorrow – much more detail about the first few days of our trip!

Amy