{"id":43113,"date":"2024-05-01T23:05:19","date_gmt":"2024-05-02T04:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=43113"},"modified":"2024-05-05T18:49:48","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T23:49:48","slug":"london","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=43113","title":{"rendered":"London"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Marrakesh Day 3 Part 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nWoke up to another beautiful morning in Marrakesh. Our flight doesn’t leave until almost 4pm this afternoon. This morning, the main objective is to pack all the many items we bought here in Morocco.<\/p>\n

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\nBut first, breakfast.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s so nice to chill down here in the courtyard. Too bad the anxiety of packing is hanging over our heads.<\/p>\n

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\nRL finishes breakfast first, and gets a head start on packing.<\/p>\n

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\nThe staff at our riad had sourced some cardboard and tape for us. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to source a giant box that we can cut down to size. Instead, we are starting with 3 boxes that are too small, and using all the available pieces to assemble into a large box. RL goes to work with her crafting skills.<\/p>\n

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\nOur awesome terrace doubles as a packing station. I’m glad we’ve got all this room up here, would be so much more difficult to do this restricted inside a small room. It’s getting pretty sunny though.<\/p>\n

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\nPart way there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nThe leather poofs that we got for our kids also go into the box, in part for transporting them and in part for padding the lamp.<\/p>\n

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\nTeamwork makes the dream work. It’s not often we work on the same wave length, but when we do, like we did this time, we kick ass. It took us about an hour and a half from start to finish to package this box. Crazy how it took 3 man hours to do this! But we did it. The plan is to take this to the airport and check it as oversized luggage. Let’s hope it can go from here to Austin mostly undamaged…<\/p>\n

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\nWe’ve used every piece of cardboard available to us to make this box. We could have definitely used more cardboard as the lamp fits inside this box without much room for cushioning on the sides. I’m guessing it’ll get some dents…<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nI had to buy a bag of this to try. It tasted similar to Nacho Cheese flavor. Kinda crazy how Tex-Mex is now considered its own cuisine.<\/p>\n

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\nNow that the biggest hurdle of creating and boxing is done, got a little bit of time to chill and blog.<\/p>\n

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\nEverything else packed too. It’s time to go to airport.<\/p>\n

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\nRL is carrying two of the sinks by hand. LOL. It’s so ridiculous to even say it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nWe’ve got so much stuff with us. I hope they’ve got push carts at the airport.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nA Bentley. Marrakesh actually has some nice cars. I can’t imagine driving a nice car around these crazy streets with mopeds mere inches away from you.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nThey are adding more height to the wall around the airport. Security concerns?<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nMade it to the airport. It’s so much less stressful taking a taxi than driving myself.<\/p>\n

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\nPush cart acquired! Let’s do this!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nThey are not quite ready for check in yet. We’ll need to wait 15min or so until the counter opens for our flight.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nGood news, we’ve checked in for our flight. The check in counter didn’t even charge us for the oversized luggage. I believe it’s supposed to be $200, but we didn’t get that charge. Sweet.<\/p>\n

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\nThe check in agent did suggest that we get the whole box wrapped as they can’t guarantee the box won’t get torn apart on the conveyor belts in the luggage handling.<\/p>\n

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\n$8 dollars will get it wrapped. Good deal.<\/p>\n

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\nWe also managed to get some fragile stickers put on it. Whether this makes a difference or not, who knows. But at least we are trying to give it the best chance of arriving mostly undamaged.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nUnfortunately, we were also asked to check in our backpacks. We’ve got the porcelain plates in them, we were very hesitant to check them in, but they were oversized and technically not carry on size. The flight is full, so the agent didn’t think we’d have space to stow them on the overhead bins. Fragile stickers, and some fingers crossed, hope for the best.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nBusiness class tickets means Fast Track. Our own line to get through security! Oh yeah. I’d imagine business tickets also helped not getting charged to ship an oversized luggage.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nCoffee please.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHappy to be going back home. Miss the kids, and miss the dog.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nLounge means food and wifi.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThis being Morocco, no alcohol at the lounge.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nOh yeah, rice. How I’ve missed rice. It’s all about bread here in Morocco for their starch.<\/p>\n

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\nYum. I’m way too excited to eat this.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nCatch up on blogging.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nGoing for seconds, don’t mind if I do. Unsure if we’ll get dinner on the flight, so this is a hedge.<\/p>\n

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\nTime to head to gate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nBritish Airways, where the liquor is free flowing. It’s strange to go from a very dry country to a very alcoholic country.<\/p>\n

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\nBusiness class seats, without the business class seats. The business class seats on this flight is just a regular seat without the middle seat being occupied by anyone. Lame. They also totally had enough space for us to bring our giant backpacks onboard. Oh well.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nI believe this is a 747 owned by the Qatar royal family, from what I could gather from the tail number.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThose homes must be loud being this close to the airport.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nGoodbye Morocco.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nWe’ve been carrying this around for almost a week, finally decide to open it. The actual item does not look like the picture. Still tastes pretty good though.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nAbout to enter UK.<\/p>\n

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\nI couldn’t figure out what was causing that rainbowish circle in the center on the photos taken from the airplane window.<\/p>\n

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\nSo lush over here compared to Morocco.<\/p>\n

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\nCanary Wharf.<\/p>\n

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\nTower Bridge<\/p>\n

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\nThe Shard<\/p>\n

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\nBritish Parliament.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nGreen houses of Kew Gardens.<\/p>\n

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\nConcorde.<\/p>\n

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\nHeathrow.<\/p>\n

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\nYes, it’s ridiculous that we are carrying around sinks…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHaving to check our backpacks means now we need to wait for them. The big box went straight to Austin. We triple checked with different staff to make sure that we don’t need to pick it up in London. We’ll need our backpacks though, since we are spending a night here in London. The flights from Marrakesh to Austin were not great in terms of layovers. I believe the shortest layover time was around 8 or 10 hours, and it was in the middle of the night when we’ll be the most tired. Instead of dealing with that, I picked the flight with the longest layover at 20 hours, this way we’ve got enough time to leave the airport, check into a hotel, visit a pub and get a good night’s sleep.<\/p>\n

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\nGot our backpacks, hopefully the plates didn’t suffer any damage (they didn’t!).<\/p>\n

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\nThen get on Heathrow Express straight to Paddington Station. It’s nice now that you can just use a contactless credit card to tap in and out of the trains in London.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nTired, even though the flight itself was less than 4 hours.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\nCan’t believe we are carrying sinks…<\/p>\n

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\nIn less than 30minutes, we’ve reached Paddington Station.<\/p>\n

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\nOur hotel for the night is just a short walk from the station.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nFound.<\/p>\n

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\nWe had missed the check in desk. It was not so much a desk as just a guy with a laptop.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nWe got into the super small elevator. It’s rated for 3, or two people with large backpacks.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThen proceeded to be lost in the maze that is our hotel hallways. It’s a combination of several buildings, so we’d enter from one to another, go up a few steps, go down a few steps.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nFound it. The room is tiny, but we are both a fan of this tiny space. This is what $223 a night gets you a short walk from Paddington Station here in London. I had forgotten how crazy expensive London is.<\/p>\n

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\nView from our window. It’s not common that I get a view into the interior of a big city block.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAnd, that’s it. It’s seriously a tiny room, and doesn’t have AC controls. It’s a little chilly, but despite all that, we both like it.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nWe had such a hard time finding our room that we decided to try to take the stairs to the lobby. Well, that became another adventure of getting very lost in this maze.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nStill lost. I think we finally gave up and just rode the elevator down again.<\/p>\n

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\nOne short night in London, gonna make the most of it. And what better thing to do here in London than to go drink and eat at a pub.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThis is London alright. Curbside parking a 400k Rolls like nobody’s business.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nI rarely see dirty cars in London, and this is one dirty car.<\/p>\n

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\nThe Victoria Pub. Again, a short walk from our hotel. It’s crazy to go from a place like Morocco where it’s so hard to find alcohol to London, where it’s impossible to not find alcohol everywhere.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAhhh, this is the stuff.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHappy to have a long layover to enjoy some pub food and drinks for a night. I know the hotel room costs money, and I know taking the train here costs money, but it all seems worth it when compared to sitting in an airport overnight for 10 hours.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nCheers!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nOf course, classic fish and chips. So good! It was fun, but we didn’t stay too long. We both felt tired from traveling today even though we mostly just sat around waiting all day.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nCall it a relatively early night at 10ish. Tomorrow, we’ll need to catch a flight a little bit before noon headed towards Austin.<\/p>\n

To be continued at Home, Sweet Home<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Marrakesh Day 3 Part 2. Woke up to another beautiful morning in Marrakesh. Our flight doesn’t leave until almost 4pm this afternoon. This morning, the main objective is to pack all the many items we bought here in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":41244,"menu_order":15,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-43113","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43113"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43363,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/43113\/revisions\/43363"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/41244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}