So, my day started at 3am when I had to leave the bed and head to the tiny loveseat sofa again. The topper the property manager got for our bed was just the mattress from the sofa bed. So at 3am, me and Mrs. Koog moved said mattress back to the sofa bed so I could sleep on the loveseat. Total hours of sleep was 4. As much as I really like London, I cannot wait to leave and get proper sleep!
Our main priority today was to ship our box of souvenirs and stuff we don't need for the remainder of the trip home. We looked up the DHL service point and it was .3 miles from our flat. Awesome! So we grabbed the 12lb box and walked the .3 miles to the DHL place. And the least knowledgeable shipping lady worked there and literally had no idea how to ship this box. We were literally at DHL. They ship things as a business, yet this lady had no idea. Frustrating. So, we grabbed our 12lb box and walked the .3 miles back to the flat to regroup. We found a different service, DPD, and made it nearly all the way through the process online but we needed to print the label and customs forms. While we do tend to overpack, we didn't pack our laser printer. We reached out to the property manager, no joy there as she lives an hour away and was not coming into town this week. I remembered a friend of mine from several years ago who still worked for our firm and was a Partner in the London office. A few keystrokes and she had someone print our label at our London office. Bam! The day turned around.
We walked to our London office which was about a 20 minute walk to grab the printed label and walked back to the flat. Then we picked up our 12 lb box and took it to the post office that is almost around the corner from our house. No issues. They took the box, gave us the tracking number and we went on with the day.
The post office was right across from the Tube station. So we hopped on and headed to Kensington Palace. We had 3pm reservations for high tea! Both E and B were very excited to partake in this very British tradition. I think they believed we'd see a Royal. We didn't. Mrs. Koog bought the tickets and it included a tour of Kensington Palace Gardens. We met the tour guide and the other 6 people on the tour at the designated place and off we went. What we were not expecting was a 50 minute tour of both Kensington Palace Garden and Hyde Park. The tour was lovely, but the Koog family was tired, sore and hungry. The boys were glued to every word this woman said! It was super cute.
After exactly 50 minutes, we entered the Kensington Palace Pavilion for tea. B-Koog and I are big fans of Earl Gray, and their private Palace Earl Gray blend was delicious. We each had 2 pots. Everyone loved the small sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream and the tiny desserts. We stayed for quite a while because we were all exhausted with aching feet. At 4:30, I had already walked almost 18 thousand steps! After our nice long rest, we took a look at the Princess Diana statue in the sunken garden and headed to the Tube station to head back to the flat.
We needed to be at homebase tonight because Mrs. Koog had to pack for her 50th birthday Sister's weekend in Croatia. She and her sisters and a friend will spend 7 days on a yacht and will bike from Split to Dubrovnik. I bug her and call it her yacht/moped week since she got an e-bike. She's going to have a blast and be able to document her fun with the go-pro!
The boys and I are without our adult for the next 11 1/2 days. Tomorrow is our last day in London. We are heading to Harrod's and the shopping district!
Our main priority today was to ship our box of souvenirs and stuff we don't need for the remainder of the trip home. We looked up the DHL service point and it was .3 miles from our flat. Awesome! So we grabbed the 12lb box and walked the .3 miles to the DHL place. And the least knowledgeable shipping lady worked there and literally had no idea how to ship this box. We were literally at DHL. They ship things as a business, yet this lady had no idea. Frustrating. So, we grabbed our 12lb box and walked the .3 miles back to the flat to regroup. We found a different service, DPD, and made it nearly all the way through the process online but we needed to print the label and customs forms. While we do tend to overpack, we didn't pack our laser printer. We reached out to the property manager, no joy there as she lives an hour away and was not coming into town this week. I remembered a friend of mine from several years ago who still worked for our firm and was a Partner in the London office. A few keystrokes and she had someone print our label at our London office. Bam! The day turned around.
We walked to our London office which was about a 20 minute walk to grab the printed label and walked back to the flat. Then we picked up our 12 lb box and took it to the post office that is almost around the corner from our house. No issues. They took the box, gave us the tracking number and we went on with the day.
The post office was right across from the Tube station. So we hopped on and headed to Kensington Palace. We had 3pm reservations for high tea! Both E and B were very excited to partake in this very British tradition. I think they believed we'd see a Royal. We didn't. Mrs. Koog bought the tickets and it included a tour of Kensington Palace Gardens. We met the tour guide and the other 6 people on the tour at the designated place and off we went. What we were not expecting was a 50 minute tour of both Kensington Palace Garden and Hyde Park. The tour was lovely, but the Koog family was tired, sore and hungry. The boys were glued to every word this woman said! It was super cute.
After exactly 50 minutes, we entered the Kensington Palace Pavilion for tea. B-Koog and I are big fans of Earl Gray, and their private Palace Earl Gray blend was delicious. We each had 2 pots. Everyone loved the small sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream and the tiny desserts. We stayed for quite a while because we were all exhausted with aching feet. At 4:30, I had already walked almost 18 thousand steps! After our nice long rest, we took a look at the Princess Diana statue in the sunken garden and headed to the Tube station to head back to the flat.
We needed to be at homebase tonight because Mrs. Koog had to pack for her 50th birthday Sister's weekend in Croatia. She and her sisters and a friend will spend 7 days on a yacht and will bike from Split to Dubrovnik. I bug her and call it her yacht/moped week since she got an e-bike. She's going to have a blast and be able to document her fun with the go-pro!
The boys and I are without our adult for the next 11 1/2 days. Tomorrow is our last day in London. We are heading to Harrod's and the shopping district!
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