Layover in London

The pursuit of a warm destination for Thanksgiving break in late November year after year has helped us explore a variety of interesting places. With year round warmer temperatures, the largest island in the Balearic islands of Spain scored a win. Relatively easy and cost effective flight connections from Los Angeles and Phoenix checked the ease of travel box. We got bumped into a slightly earlier flight from LAX due to an error United made in our seats and managed to get upgraded to Business for the kids and me (Thanks to Chinmay who sat in Premier Econnomy). A short comfortable flight brought us to LHR. We took the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station lugging our bags with us and on to Victoria station where we stored our luggage. This famished fam fed themselves on some good food at Pret-a-Manger next door and hopped over to the British Museum. it was a crisp clear and cooler but sunny day in this bustling lively city.

While it is easy to spend an entire day at the British museum browsing through the various historical exhibits from every region of the world, we only had about an hour. We explored the Rosetta Stone exhibit as well as the Eyptian history exhibit with mummies and coffins ⚰️ with a preview into how life revolved around ensuring a glorious life after death in that society. Even the pets and animals deserved the same dignified mummification as humans. The exhibit on Asia intrigued me with the timeline dating back to 150 million years ago when the first human inhabited that region. Next stop- the Shard for the view from the top. Totally shippable with the steep price tag albeit stunning. A better use of time would have been walking on the Tower bridge and admiring the Thames views up close. The hangry haggard bunch made their way to Masala Zone in Earl’s Court after a bunch of walking and Tube stops. Puja, Ashish and Shubham had driven 3 hours to see us. The sprouted lentil bhel was like regular bhel and yummy. Rest of the food was a B+ but the company made up for it quite well. Puja’s home baked Biscoff cake was delish and precluded the sweet good-byes. We took the 10pm Gatwick express to our Hilton hotel at LGW and crashed for the night before our 7am British airways flight on Saturday.