I thought the UK would be easier ...

We're in Redhill, UK now. Will head to office for the afternoon for three interviews with professionals. All sound very interesting and fun so it'll go quickly.

The last couple days have been the toughest of the trip. We were supposed to leave Singpore at 11 p.m. on Friday night and arrive in London early in the morning (via Paris). But our flight left 3 hours late for some reason. We were sitting on that plane for 18 or 19 hours. It's torture sitting that long and in the dark the whole time since it was an overnight flight. Suprised my neck isn't sore from all the head bobbing. We missed our flight to London and after about 45 minutes of computer clicking by the clueless Air France guy, we were rerouted to Amsterdam and then to London on KLM Airlines (even the KLM guy complained about the Air France guy for ticketing us wrong). After two more flights, we arrived in London about 30 hours after we began. That's a lot of time in the same clothes and shoes and we looked skanky! We took quick showers and went to the hotel for dinner. We were both dizzy with exhaustion and got through as soon as we could so we could pass out. Lynne couldn't even sit up at that point.

The bad news is our huge case with camera equipment didn't make it to London when we did. It finally arrived at our hotel at 9 p.m. Saturday, thank goodness.

We spent Sunday exploring London. Had to take a train from Gatwick to Victoria Station and then jump on the tube. I'm a little rusty at public transportation but we figured it out. It's freezing here. Only in the 40s. We had on jackets and I had a scarf but we were shaking with the cold. We visited the British Museum for hours. Saw Mummies from Egypt, which were amazing. It was so cold we didn't want to be outside, so we jumped on a double decker tour bus for several hours and got a great tour of the city. Saw Trafalgar Square with Lord Nelson's monument (it was all being refurbished and was under scaffolding when I was last here in 1989 -- dating myself), the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster, Hyde Park, Marble Arch, St. Paul's Cathedral, etc. Headed back to the hotel at Gatwick about 8 p.m.

My room key wasn't working then. Got it fixed. Then I changed my clothes and found that I have red marks all round my legs/ankles. I have cooties! I think it's bed bugs. So gross! A colleague had them in India so bad she had to go to the hospital. And that was at a 5-star hotel. This is no 5-star. Maybe a 3. Mine aren't as bad and so far aren't itchy. But I looked it up on the Internet and it talked about getting blood poisoning from them and anaphalactic shock, so my hypochrondriacism went into overdrive.

I called the front desk and they sent up the hotel manager. He took a picture of my legs and said they have never had an issue and asked where else have I been. I told him we've been all over but hadn't been in a hotel since Thursday night. He gave me a new room on a different floor since he said they can move from room to room. Hope they don't migrate to Lynne's room. I'm so grossed out by it.

Service here isn't great. Nothing is compared to India, which had a million people on staff. I tried to order room service then and no one answered the phone (tried several times). Couldn't choke down one more protein bar so went to bed a little hungry. The wake-up call feature didn't work either. And then I figured out I'd left my PJs in my previous room but again they weren't picking up the phone at the front desk. Sigh.

During the night I got a text saying I was over on my corporate phone data plan. Great. Now I can't get or send texts, which have been the best way to communicate here. Send a note to KC asking for them to fix that.

Hope today goes better. I'm tired.