Well today was quite a day.  It started off with me getting my hair cut.  We have been on the road a while and I was getting a bit shaggy.  I made an appointment yesterday for 11:30.  Our flight isn’t until 4:55 this afternoon, so we do have some time to kill.  We wander around Horley for a while.  Find a couple of geocaches along the way.

A magnetic one attached to a fence post

Another magnetic one on the back side of this grey metal box

We are paring down our luggage so that we only have carry on.  This saves us about 30 GBP for each bag we do not check in.  I bought a new tube of sun screen for this trip.  It is a virgin tube of sun screen.  We have not even looked at it.  Now that we are going to sunnier climes, I will need it.  Guess what, it is more than 100 ml.  The limit for carry on liquids!!  Ha ha ha.  I have to leave it.  I gather all of our other liquids, the shampoos, conditioners  and lotions that we have taken from other hotels, toner, moisturizers, hand sanitizers etc. and put them into a zip lock bag.

We have a few stories today  🙂  🙁

1.  OK, every time we leave on vacation, before we leave the driveway, Stu always, ALWAYS asks if I have the passports.  I always ALWAYS say “YES” as I roll my eyes.  Duh duh!!  Well, I kept the passports in a zipped pocket in my camera bag, that I usually wear over my shoulder.  When we were at the Cliffs Of Moher, one of  the clasps that hooked onto the bag broke, so it was not a shoulder bag any longer.  So I decided that I didn’t need to take this bag as it was heavy and now awkward to carry.  I packed it into the bag we left at our guesthouse.  We arrived at the airport and Stu now asks “Do you have the passports??”  Oh CRAP!!!  No I don’t.  We have a lot of time thankfully.  So Stu stays at the airport with the bags we took and I grab a cab back to the guesthouse, grab the passports and back in less than an hour.  Whew!
2. We head to security.  As you probably have heard England is on high alert.  We put our belongings into the bins and head through the security gates.  They have a system for placing your things in security bins which is different than we have seen before.  There are numbers on the floor and an attendant assigns you to a number behind someone else.  Stu is in line 3 and I am in line 2.  The woman in front of me is very very slow in putting her things in the bins.  Stu is finished and she is still futsing around, so I am able to move to Stu’s line as he has moved onto the next thing, the scanner.  So by the time I get my things in the bin he is waiting for me.  I walk through the scanner.  Things beep and they ask me to take off my shoes and place them on an xray belt, and me through the 3D scanner.  I seem to set off alarms there too.  I have a female security agent patting my down, waving her wand all over my body, running her fingers around my waistband, around my bra.  Basically a full body pat down.  Finally she is satisfied and lets me through.  Stu is there waiting for me with some of my stuff from the bins.  My laptop and other carry on are not there.  I see them on the other side of the belt.  Items on the other side require further investigation!!  Crap, it turns our that I bought a bottle of water while we walked around Horley this morning and forgot it was in my bag.  The same woman who patted my down, now is going through my bag.  I can’t believe I forgot the water  🙁
3. We still have a at least 4 hours before our flight.  The gates are not even posted for quite a while.  We find some seats and decide that one of us will go to WH Smith to find a book for our relaxing days in Sardinia, then the other will watch the bags while the next one chooses a book.  Finally our gate is announced so we head towards it.  We board the plane and take off.  Part way through I notice that we are missing a bag.  The bag with the liquids.  Shampoo, condition, my perfume, face cream.  Some chips, cookies, a hat.  Somehow lost along the way.

What a day????

Since we are going to Italy the plugs are different than England.  We did not bring any adapters for the European continent.   The shops at the airport carry UK to US (Canada) adapters or UK to Europe.  So I buy UK to Europe.  This is what we have now.  North America adapted to UK then adapted to Europe.

Before the adaption

After 🙂

We get our car and drive to our place for tonight, which is thankfully not far.  Was have lost an hour since London and it is dark and the roads are windy.    We move tomorrow to the west side of the island. Hopefully the day will go smoother!!  🙂