Carolyn's Various Travels: Day 1 - Arrival and Natural History Museum

We had a bit of a changed itinerary when American changed our carefully made flight times, giving us less than an hour to make an international connection. I discovered this the week before we left and changed things around, but it meant we had to leave at 12:30 instead of 2:30. We went to the early Easter service and then headed straight to the airport.

It was nice not be traveling with quite as much luggage as we had when we took Delaney to school in September. Adam and Kayla managed with just one case between the two of them. I brought Delaney several of the goodies she wanted from home, including Jif peanut butter and angel hair pasta.

The change in our itinerary meant that we arrived in London at 7:30 am instead of 10:30 am. Our airBnB was not supposed to be available until 2:00. There's not a lot you can do with 5 people all feeling groggy from the flight and 4 suitcases at 10 in the morning. We took the train into town (the Picadilly line was down) and made our way to our lodging hoping we might get in early. We didn't hear from the host at all. Delaney timed her arrival from Bournemouth well and met us there about 5 minutes after we arrived. After sitting in front of a pub which was getting ready to open for lunch, we finally decided to find somewhere that had room for us and our luggage and eat. We found a place serving breakfast all day and she kindly let us shove our suitcases in a corner. The host contacted us shortly and said the cleaning lady was there and would let us leave our luggage.

We dropped the luggage and headed to the Natural History Museum. I had entry tickets for 3:30 pm (because we were supposed to be landing at 10:30, not 7:30). It was only 1:00. We hoped they would let us in early, but the place was packed and they said no. A few of the group went across the street to the Victoria and Albert which did not have any capacity limits or entry tickets. The rest of us waited in front of the museum and people watched. By the time 3:30 rolled around. Several of us were worn out and decided to simply go back to the accommodation. The others got to enjoy the museum for an hour or so.

The AirBnB was a great place and perfect for the 7 of us. 4 bedrooms 1 bath and 2 half baths and a decent kitchen and laundry. Large dining and living area. The master bedroom was my favorite. Great location in Chelsea and Kensington. Pretty posh neighborhood based on the cars we saw parked in front of the flats.