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We like to travel on group tours and one of the reasons is that we always make new travel friends.  People who travel together have the advantage of shared interests and in many cases shared values.  Travelers also tend to be gregarious and conversational.
In our trip to London we became friends with Bob and Krista, a father and daughter travel teal from Pennsylvania.  Bob, at 86, was the most senior member of our small travel group and his daughter the youngest member of our group.  We met over dinner and the conversation flowed easily and we learned a lot about each other in a short time.
We talked about what we would like to do in our free time on the tour.  Having a traditional English High (Traditional) tea was on the top of our list and we found a French restaurant less than a block from our hotel that offered high tea daily.  Bob and Krista wanted to have the experience too and we made a foursome.
There are a lot of choices to make in a high tea.  You select finger sandwiches, scones and cakes and it’s served on a metal, Christmas tree shaped with three levels.  Sandwiches are on the bottom, scones in the middle and cakes on top.  We selected three types of sandwiches, two types of scones and two types of cake.  There were also at least 40 teas to choose from.
At tea we learned Bob had been in finance and still reads three newspapers a day, especially financial newspapers.  He is an active stock trader.  Krista worked in Pennsylvania state government in Harrisburg.  Bob lives in a senior community and still jogs two miles a day several times a week.  Krista had just rescued a Persian cat several weeks before trip and was worried about her.
Another evening Bob invited us to visit Piccadilly Circus in the evening because he wanted to see the area at night.  We agreed that if it rained we would go another night.  In the late afternoon it rained and after a long day walking and standing I took a nap before dinner, assuming that the visit to Piccadilly would be another night.  We noticed that Bob and Krista were not at dinner so we knew that Bob was living his dream, rain or no rain.
The next morning we had breakfast with Bob and Krista and their shared their adventure of visiting Piccadilly Circus at night and it lived up to what Bob expected.  A lot of people use the area to freely express their views of the world.  At breakfast Krista shared with us there was one sloppily dressed man shouting at the top of his lungs “What about the Irish!”  Of course we couldn’t decide if his comment was positive or negative but it was in the context of the liveliness of the Circus and gave the four of us a big laugh at breakfast.       

​The flight was scheduled to leave O’Hare at 7:30 pm, which as I wrote about last week, didn’t happen.  The flight included two meals, dinner and breakfast.  Flying overnight to London makes perfect sense because you leave in the evening, get whatever shut eye you can manage, then land in London about 9:00 am, have a regular day, then off to sleep at night, hoping to trick your inner clock.
Because the flight was delayed dinner wasn’t served until 11:00 pm CDT-Chicago by a crew who worked extremely hard to meet our needs.  That meant having dinner at 5:00 am London time.  Breakfast was served about 4:00 am CDT- Chicago which would be 10 am London time – not bad.  The problem is that flying overnight your inner clock needs to re-set by 6 hour.  That 6 hours disappears, I don’t know where, but it is lost – gone forever.
On arrival day the only tour activity is to have a welcome dinner in the hotel and an informal introduction to your fellow travelers.  After dinner we strolled around the hotel and took in the sights and sounds of Kenningston.  Everything felt fine until I actually tried to sleep, I was wide awake.  I decided I wanted to watch BBC News from London and wanted to continue to follow the flood devastation in Houston.  My choice may have been a mistake because it’s not easy to watch others have that level of disruption and suffering in their lives.  I finally feel asleep about 11:00 pm – London time, which would be 5:00 pm CDT-Chicago and there’s the problem.
My inner clock simply refused to adjust.  I slept initially for about 3 ½ hours and was up again, random thoughts bouncing around the room.  About 4:30 am I dozed off again to wake up at 6:30 to get ready for 7:00 am breakfast.  I slept a total of 5 ½ hours, far short of normal and not what I needed to walk and tour during the day.
This pattern continued for three days and our fellow travelers worried about our health and the signs of exhaustion that refused to go away.  Finally, on Thursday we left the hotel at 9:00 am and didn’t return until after dinner and the theater at about 10:30 pm.  Thursday was the first full night of sleep and it made a difference.
I’ve traveled to Ireland, France and Egypt and don’t recall such a struggle with jet lag.  It may be because I’ve aged and my inner clock isn’t as adaptable as it once was.   Looking back on my experience I am of the opinion that I let myself over think the jet lag problem.
Next time, I’m asking my physician for drugs.      

​One of our family goals is to travel internationally every other year.  This year is our year and we decided to try a 10 day Road Scholar Tour to London.  Several of our friends have participated in Road Scholar Tours and given rave reviews.  One of the main benefits is that they don’t take you shopping.  Our tours to Ireland, Egypt and France all included scheduled shopping trips which I consider a diversion. 
We took the path of least work and scheduled our flight from Chicago to London through Road Scholar, which, no fault of theirs was a mistake because we didn’t get to select the airline we wanted to fly.  We were assigned American Airlines from Chicago to London because they have some sort of reciprocal agreement with British Airways – who knew.   We booked a stay/fly/park Wyndom Hotel a few minutes from O’Hare the day before our flight.  The advantage is getting a good night’s sleep before flying and a place to park the car with six days free and we paid for another six days.
We arrived at O’Hare early in the day to get bags checked in and through security at least three hours before the flight.  Baggage check-in and boarding passes are done at a kiosk which required someone to help us use but still was not frustrating and took less than ten minutes.  As it turned out we were given a TSA security pass so it took less than five minutes to walk through to our terminal.  As a result we had a lot of time to kill – about six hours.
The time to board our flight finally arrived and a large group of travelers lined up outside the gate.  The person making the announcements was unintelligible and a group of people rushed the desk, asked for clarification and then came back to the group waiting to explain her instructions.  After this happened several times I approached the desk and explained that the announcements were unintelligible and asked if another staff member could make the announcements.  The American Airlines staff explained the problem was poor acoustics in the terminal.  I pointed out that we could hear and understand announcements from staff four gates away.  They simply refused to change the person making announcements.  We were lined up to board when they announced a gate change.  A gate change, at this point?  We all struck off to the nearby gate but no staff was there to organize boarding the plane.  Then there was an announcement that there would be a delay in our flight because the plane we were going to use was being changed.
The story offered by American Airlines staff was pure fiction.  A plane flying in from Madrid had been hit by lightening.  Per safety procedures that plane’s next flight was to be delayed two hours.  The plane we were to board for London had been sitting at the gate since early afternoon.   We never did receive an explanation why our plane was swapped for another plane.  In addition, all the information on our London flight was removed from the information board and instead they posted information on a flight that was to leave at 10:15 pm.
At that point I decided their deception was intentional.  Our flight to London was delayed two hours.  As a result we missed our ride from Heathrow to our hotel and waited another two hours at Heathrow to for a ride.  Our original schedule was to be in London for lunch and we got there just in time for dinner.
Two lessons were learned.   NEVER, NEVER fly American Airlines.  Book your own flight when traveling and don’t depend on the tour company.
P.S.  The tour leader met us in the lobby of the hotel and apologized profusely.  The our company contracts for transportation service and only learned of our dilemma after it happened.  The tour guide arranged for hot tea, sandwiches and a potato leek soup  that may have saved my life.
Next week – jet lag blues.