England, Friday Apr 23 (day 17 of our trip)

On Friday, we got up "early" at 10:00, and went and got a full English breakfast. This includes Eggs, tomato, mushroom, sausage, bacon, beans, and toast. It's so much food! Then, we hung out with Cole, Alice, and Brook at G&D's (the place where we moo'd for free ice cream). When we finally got back home, I noticed that Marti had called and emailed to talk about stand-by flights. She said that United had added more flights to and from the UK, and our chances of getting on a plane were actually quite good! We were pretty excited, and checked United.com about a million times to see if we could check in for the next day. However, we still needed to make certain that our flights with British Air were refundable. If we went to "manage trip" on their site, the button for "cancel and refund ticket" was easily accessible, but I still had my doubts since our tickets were so cheap. It seems like refundable tickets are usually far more expensive.

So we called British Air to find out whether we really could get a refund on the flight. The first person said the tickets were non-refundable and left it at that. Then I got on the phone with another person to try to get more details, figuring we could argue it a little considering the ash situation. This lady said we could get the taxes on the tickets back (90 pounds each ticket), but that's it. Then Ben noticed that the website actually said "are you sure you need to fly? You can cancel for a full refund." So we talked to like 3 more people to try and confirm that. The general message was that they only offered refunds if you were flying from somewhere else, into the UK, because those are the most needed seats. They actually updated the website to reflect this as we talked! We did the math a dozen different ways, but in the end, we paid $1450 for the Sunday tickets, then would pay $650 for stand-by tickets, then only get $250 back from the regular tickets if we cancelled. Spending an extra $400 to save only one day just didn't make sense. And since several family members had been kind enough to help us out financially, we felt we should be as responsible as possible with that help. But it was so disappointing!

Figuring all that out took a big chunk of our morning. I thought to myself that if I had a dollar for every hour I'd spent on the computer this week, researching and re-researching, I would have about a million dollars! I forced myself to do a little Wirestone work—my goal is to have about 8 billable hours this week so I would only put 4 days under PTO rather than 5. I'm so handicapped on my computer (wrong programs and files), that it's tough to do more than that.

We finally left the house again at 7:00, after Ben took a quick nap. His sleep schedule is all messed up because he keeps waking up at night to watch hockey (the Avs are in the playoffs). We joined up with Brook, and headed towards the bar on the river where I was thinking we would read and Cole would study, but it was so late in the evening by the time we left, that we just hung out and had a drink.

We had planned to eat there, but it was so pricey we decided to head towards our next stop for the evening: the Queen's bar. This bar was quite packed because it was St. George's day (patron saint of England), and several older men were totally drunk, and wearking roses on their lapels, which is a custom for some reason. The three of us pretended to Ben that we had no idea that it was also Karaoke Night at the bar, but he didn't buy it. Ben and I got a couple drinks and brought in gyro's from the kabob van down the street, and we sat outside drinking for a bit. Once karaoke started, we put in our usual songs: Eminem for Cole, Shut Up (our favorite duet), and Love Shack (an excellent group song).

They called up Cole, then me and Cole for Love Shack immediately after. Unfortunately, I realized that this song really is better in a group, because I sounded terribly shrill singing "everybody's movin, everybody's groovin baby" by myself. I was glad when it was over! By then, Ben's occasional social anxiety had hit him full-force, and his fun factor was diminishing. We stayed until Cole and my duet, Shut Up by the Black Eyed Peas, which went quite well.

Then we went outside to grab some air. I tried to grab some drinks, but back inside about a million (seemingly) 15-year olds had packed in, and refused to move to let a person walk down the aisle, so I started to get annoyed with this place as well, and we considered leaving for another bar. Brook went ahead of us, and Ben followed shortly after. "Is Ben going to attack Brook?" Cole asked jokingly. Quite the opposite though—one of the drunk guys with the rose in his lapel had gotten up and followed Brook once she left. Ben went to check on her, but the guy had disappeared. Once we finished our drinks, we headed down various deserted alleyways to this cool place called Turf Tavern. The entrance was totally hidden away, and apparently the only way it stayed in business was through word of mouth, since you couldn't see it from any street. Sadly, it was closed, but the experience of getting there and seeing it was quite cool.

To finish out our night, we headed home and watched—that's right—Community! I showed Ben and Cole my crackerjack method for getting rid of hiccups by drinking from a cup backwards, Ben and Cole ate more kabob-van-food, and then it was time for sleep.

England, Wednesday Apr 21 (day 15 of our trip)

Ben got up at 3am and checked the status of our flight multiple times (and also watched hockey). I kept tossing and turning, asking even after I knew, whether the flight was cancelled. I woke up thinking I didn’t want to do that again! And we may not get a chance to—later research revealed that Heathrow airport actually requested that stand-by passengers NOT go to the airport, because they were not going to be getting on a flight. I was just a little relieved. We wouldn’t be getting home early (unless they change that policy), but we wouldn’t have to check every night or spend every day at the airport trying.
We both woke up the next morning feeling pretty exhausted. We ate breakfast, then both napped. Ben couldn't seem to get up from the nap though, so I attended today's activity: croquet, with just Cole and I. We went over to St. Hilda's college, and fetched the croquet set, then met the group on the lawn. There were about 9 people, but I only remember a few names. I was paired with Jen, which I told myself was a good thing since it meant we could form new memories besides me breaking her camera. We started the game out a little rough - missing the first hoop over and over, and then being (cruelly) roqueted away from the hoop by Cole. Thus began a competition between our teams: Cole and the theater girl, versus me and Jen. The other team was far ahead. Eventually we taught Cole a hard lesson by roqueting his ball away as well. But maybe it wasn't that hard a lesson since Jen accidentally hit her foot with the mallet and barely moved his ball. Still, I think we made our point! Of course, it was all in good fun. Jen and I ended up winning by a small margin. I'm pretty sure she carried our team at the end, as I had a propensity for hitting the ball way further than intended and throwing us off track, while she had a propensity for making the ball go through the hoop. While we played, we ate cucumber sandwiches, Pimms, and fresh English strawberries. It was such a nice, British afternoon!

They day before, I had purchased tickets to see Date Night with Steve Correll and Tina Fey. It was silly but, I was happy we were here to see the movie—we would have missed it if we'd flown that day! We walked towards town at a high speed. Cole told me there was a phrase around here for people who are walking fast with a strong goal in mind, not allowing any distractions, called "mishing it." As in, you're on a mission. That is how Ben walked. When we were only yards from the theater, Cole and I had to convince him that there was no reason for us to rush, we had an HOUR before the movie started, and besides, it was assigned seating!

So, we popped into a fun little burger joint to grab some food. We got chips and salsa, as well as fries (around here those would be corn crisps and salsa, and chips) to go with our burgers, which was lovely. Then headed into the movie. Our seats were decent, but around here they actually have a section with nicer chairs and better locations, and like little rebels, we totally switched to those seats once the lights dimmed.

The movie was great, with some really strong and hilarious scenes, although a little inconsistent (like when they took breaks from the action to pull over and talk about their marriage - get on with the good stuff)! There is a scene where Tina and Steve danced together, and I about peed my pants. That's cinematic gold!

Headed home, watched Community, then sleep.