Delhi to London - the last day of the solo RTW sojourn
After the quick tour of Delhi (see last post) I caught my 10 hour flight and officially ended my solo sojourn around the world. Tony arrived to London before me and did some sightseeing.
Once I arrived we had some time on the next morning to walk around London just a bit - mainly a park called The Queen's Garden. Then we caught the train to Birmingham. We did a bit of walking around and exploring Birmingham. I was still battling my Delhi Belly at this point, so basically I was happy to have Tony's company, happy to be in cool weather, happy to be walking around seeing something new - but I wasn't feeling too great. I felt better everyday and by the end of the conference I was feeling pretty normal again. While I did the conference Tony went to the motorcycle museum and did a few other things. His album is posted on webshots.
After finishing up the work part in Birmingham we took a train up to where Cadbury World is located. It was a very interesting tour - fascinating history. Since getting home I have read The Chocolate Wars and found it fascinating (written by one of the Cadbury descendents).
Our next adventure was to hop on a plane to Oslo. I ended up booking Lufthansa through Frankfurt for a variety of reasons (it's not such a great distance, Birmingham to Oslo, you would have thunk I could get a direct flight, but alas I could not). We had a very German experience with security in Frankfurt. I guess they had never seen a Kindle before! Tony was starting to look a little wild-eyed and you could see the phrase body-cavity-search reflected there. Eventually we got through it and arrived in Oslo late at night. Troopers that they are, Pam and Rob were there to pick us up. We finally got to see their new place - we didn't take nearly enough pictures, and since it was Tony taking them they are mostly of the dogs, but we did get the view from the livingroom. The master bedroom is directly above with the same view - so that's what Pam and Rob see when they open their eyes each morning. What a life! The first morning we headed by train to Oslo Sentral to meet the bus for the hash-club trip to Lillehammer. The same photo album has the smattering of photos of Pam's place, the dogs and the trip to Lillehammer. I guess this is all we have of the hash itself. Hard to believe, seems like there were more pictures, but I guess they were from other folks posting on Facebook.
After spending the weekend in the far North, we spent one last day in Oslo. We did the standard Oslo-touristy things like Frognor park and the new ski jump and some general driving around to see everyone's workplace and school. A nice family day out.
The last leg of the big adventure started with getting up at 4a and being almost late for the Flytogget (train to the airport) and watching Pam run at full speed carrying my large heavy suitcase up the stairs over the platform and back down in time to wedge same suitcase into the door to keep it from closing. Her fitness obsession does have its practical advantages! :) We caught the train, made our flight in plenty of time. We had to get our bags and change terminals and go through the rigamarole to fly into the US. The flight wasn't too bad - Virgin Atlantic. Coach, but not the worst long flight I had experienced! We landed in Miami and had to take a $100 cab ride home. But you know what? Why have the whole thing end smoothly?
Around the world in 41 days. One lost forever.
