Day 1 & 2-Madison to London

It was a pleasant, leisurely, uneventful taxi ride to Dane County Regional Airport (thank you, Madison Taxi). Storms in Ohare, but we flew in fine.  Had about an hour and a half connection, so we stopped to have a Wolfgang Puck pizza. (Delicious).  Then, we discovered our flight to London was actually British Air, not American and in the notorious Terminal 5.  As we left our secured area with thirty minutes or so left, I had a feeling of trepidation.  Tram ride later, we entered the second security check of the day.  The AA gate agent had replaced our TSA Pre approved boarding passes with regular ones, and there was a three mile line of humanity in the regular line.  Only place I've seen worse is in St Thomas airport.

I asked everyone who would listen what we should do to not miss our flight.  I got us bumped up to the crew line for our first check, but we were in a line for the normal shoes off/etc. for what seemed like hours.  British Air sent some sort of expediter but she was long gone.  I finally budged the line slightly when a young gentleman asked us to take his place and almost got clubbed by a grandmother, mother, and baby with full plastic paraphernalia trying to get all that mess on the conveyor.  Thought they'd taken one of my shoes, but finally found it on the floor and prepared to run to the gate when I discovered Rex didn't have his shoes on.  

We did get on the plane last, which of course had a guy with a medical emergency in the fairly constant turbulence of the last 3 1/2 hours of flight.  Flight attendants were literally running down the aisle with oxygen and orange juice but he was alive and we gulped our breakfast and half a cup of Jo down quickly.

However, Rex's big rolling suitcase wheel was destroyed, (thank you, AA/British air) we discovered after taking pot luck on which subway exit was ours and being off by a couple of miles of Kenningston High Street.  Made it to our Hilton and after tense negotiations we managed to upgrade to a neat room on the top floor (yes, more money was involved, but they let us collapse in another room until this one was ready)

My wardrobe for the two days looked a little like PJs, I guess.  J. Jill comfy Pima tshirt

Me made Style arc Ponte pants

My wool Eileen Fisher ombré scarf helped class this up and the warmth was helpful several times on the plane and elsewhere.  Even went to dinner in this outfit at a great Italian restaurant, Il Portico.  

My coat was perfect for the temps everywhere but the subways, which were way too hot.

Accessories were comfy until the end of that last slog to the hotel, sans suitcase wheel.

It rained all around us, but not on us, the rest of the day.  Here's one view from our room of one storm.

  

Off to breakfast and a bike ride to the V & A.  More later. . . .