CENTRAL EUROPE BLOG April 25th and 26th, 2026 - LONDON
4/25/26– Interesting trip this time as Sharece is staying home but I’m meeting Kelvin in London. We planned a three week whirlwind around Europe to get some more countries under his belt and to have a fun father/son time.
My early flight out of San Diego is set for 6:15am, which means a very early wakeup. Luckily we are only fifteen minutes away from the airport. I said my heartfelt goodbye’s to Sharece as she drops me off at departures and start the journey without her for the first time in years. I’m sad she’s not going on this trip but her sacrifice is for a good cause.
I do have to wait about ten minutes before dropping of my bag and for security, since both don’t open until 4am, but once it does I breeze through and arrive at the gate with over an hour to spare for the first leg of the trip to Dallas.
I sit down near the counter and shortly after am greeted with the sounds of people’s cell phone videos echoing from nearby. Bruh, it’s 4:30am, have some respect for the dead. I deal with it until an elder lady sits next to me wreaking of stale cigarettes. “Nope”, immediately I find another seat.
Once on board the plane, I doze off for a bit before hearing the captain state we are delayed due to a mechanical failure in one of the wheels. Apparently a part needs to be replaced and it may take up to thirty minutes or so. Not trusting the timeframe, I contact American Airlines via the app to go over my options before hearing all is fixed and we are ready to take off (1.5 hours late). At least my next flight isn’t until 3:10pm Central Time so have plenty of time still.
Our original plan was to meet up in Dallas to take the 2nd flight together, but my plane got switched for whatever reason to an earlier one several months ago. I don’t mind too much as I saved two hours on the layover, but this means we won’t see each other until he lands in London.
As I try to board the plane, the ticket reader says my seat number is not assigned. Perhaps this was due to me contacting customer service before but they quickly fix the issue and place me in the back of the plane with no reclining seat. Figuring to just make due, I settle in only to have the flight attendant hand me a new ticket. Puzzled, I take a glance to see the seat number is toward the front. She smiles and says I’ve been upgraded to Premium Class. Oh, uh… okay. Nice.
I grab my belongings, filter through the congested and compact rows and like an oasis I see my seat, with double legroom, large monitor, blinder sides for privacy and a goody bag of headphones, lotions and a blanket. I quickly sit down like I belong but internally I’m riddling with excitement over this new situation (especially for the long nine hour international flight). Well done travel gods… well done!
The flight is pretty smooth as I try and sleep through most of it. The first course dinner is presented like a first class meal, with chilled silverware to boot, and it’s quite good. It’s about this time I get a text from Kelvin saying he has made his international flight as well, which is a load off my mind. I’ve been tracking our flights through Flightaware and see him about three hours behind mine. Fun.
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4/26/26– Plane lands around 6am local time and I’m thankful for the extra room because I was able to get some much needed sleep.
Passport control is swift and my bag is practically waiting for me on the carrousel when I arrive. Of course now I’m faced with the decision on where to wait for Kelvin. For the time being I plan to stay at baggage claim so I can meet him when he comes down, but that may change if I get kicked out for any reason.
The three hours pass by as I meet up with Kelvin around 9:30am at his baggage belt. Finally, we can get the day started. Our AirBnb also is allowing us to check-in early (originally was stated around noon), so we grab his bag, locate the overcrowded tube and take it an hour to our destination. At least we’re able to sit down for most of the journey.
Checkin-in is simple as I follow the directions sent by the host, however the three flights of stairs is not my friend. Our room is also very basic with a separate shared bathroom, but we planned to stay within a budget during this trip and this was one of the better locations to do so.
After maybe thirty minutes of putting our heads on straight, we venture outside and walk the ten minutes toward Big Ben and Parliament. It’s here that we see streets closed off for a marathon as people line the block cheering on the mammoth amount of runners hurling down the road.
Continuing past Big Ben, we walk down the bridge, making a loop around the Thames River, before checking out the Jewel Tower. It cost 9 Pounds to enter with only two small rooms to see after navigating some spiral stairs, but it’s interesting enough to understand the history as it was once part of the Palace of Westminster housing King Edward III’s personal treasure in the 14th century.
Our legs are feeling the ache, but try to see if we can cross through the marathon to the other side to continue the day, only to realize that it will most likely take about thirty minutes of waiting for the runners to be redirected before we can do so. We decide instead to find a place to eat, settling on the pub Grafton Arms.
It’s virtually empty when we arrive, but by the time our food comes to the table it fills up fast as the football match begins. The fish and chips is quite nice, very light and crispy, along with the shrimp scampi, but I’m not able to eat much more than half. Kelvin orders an appetizer and we share a beer before trotting back to our AirBnb. The stairs back to our room is the final culprit to call it quits by 4pm and we do everything we can to try and stay awake until at least 8pm to completely flip our schedules over to their time zone.
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