Sassy and Say Jay's European Adventure

I am Catherine Banks. I gave my niece, Kimberly, a trip to Europe for her high school graduation gift. What you are about to read are the daily accounts I sent home while on our trip. When Kimmy was little, she called me "Aunt Sassy". When my daughter was a toddler, she called Kimmy "Say Jay". This is where the name of our trip came from. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventure.

Greetings From Frankfurt 12/29/02 5:05AM EST

The trip so far has been......interesting. The flight was great - no big deal. I love my new flight pillow - I actually used the eye shades I've had for a while and am now a big fan. Food was not good - of course. It's great to be with Kimmy. She reviewed the Germany books and highlighted what she wanted to do in Frankfurt and Munich.

The first "interesting" thing happened right after we landed. We stopped short of the terminal and they made an announcement that we had blown a tire on landing and that the airport had to send someone to come look at the plane before we could proceed. The landing wasn't at all rough - the mechanics showed up right away and cleared us to proceed to the terminal - all in all no big deal - just.....interesting.

Next interesting thing is that Kimmy's bag didn't make it to Germany. They tell us that AA has now put it on a Lufthansa flight from Dallas to Frankfurt and that it may either be here this afternoon, or perhaps on the AA flight in the morning. The AA baggage lady was as grumpy as most AA baggage people the world over, except she had a harsh German accent to go with it. There were about a half dozen of us missing bags. Most everyone was pretty upset. I think Kimmy and I brought a little levity to the situation when we had one of the others take our picture under the sign that said (in German) "Baggage Tracing". We offered to be last to file our claim since we didn't have anyone waiting on us and weren't in a hurry. I'm glad I bought the travel insurance - we may have to go clothes shopping.

Next, we walked down to the train station located at the airport and bought a ticket from the crazy little machine. I thought I bought a ticket for two. Apparently I didn't. The "DB" police (Deutsch Bahn) police on the train asked to see our tickets - I showed him what I had and apparently it was an all day pass for one person. Bummer. I had to pay a 30 Euro fine directly to him and he presented us with a really cool German traffic ticket sort of thing to put in our scrapbook. We're officially international criminals.

The main rail station here is simply HUGE!! We wandered around and finally found the outdoors. Our hotel is directly across the street and is great! It is the only night we are staying at a really great hotel. It was only 75 Euros for the night and has free internet access. Also, what a blessing that our room was ready so we got to go straight up and throw down our bags....well.....my bag anyway. We got something to eat and as soon as I finish this message we are going on a walking tour of Frankfurt - then to bed.

Philip, please advise how Ruthie's ear is and smooch both of the kids for me!

Greetings from Munich 12/30/2002 7:30am EST

We have found Munich. We are at the 'Easy Everything' Internet Cafe across from the Main Rail Station. (Hauptbaunhof). We took the train from Frankfurt this morning.

Speaking of Frankfurt, I am glad we went, but there wasn't that much to see. What we did see was interesting though - it was a good starting point for two Americans with jetlag. We saw the Romerburg which is the old city square. While we were walking there, there was a beautiful church where many people seemed to be coming in to tour. Oops, they were actually going to church. We had forgotten that it was Sunday. We quietly left.

Because it was Sunday most everything was closed.

We went to a grocery store and got food and had a picnic for dinner. We had just gotten up after a 7 hour nap - then we went back to bed after dinner until 7am. The breakfast buffet at the hotel was very good.

This morning while we were getting dressed we watched 'Bewitched' dubbed in German.

After Breakfast we walked to the train station and made reservations for the train and got on. We had to change trains in Mannheim. I have one tip for rail travel (at least in Germany). When the train stops at your stop - you'd better be ready to get off. Also, in Mannheim we had a three minute connection. That is not a typo. We got on the first car we saw and just walked through the train to find our car. That was Kimmy's suggestion and it's a good thing we did because we would have had to take the next train if we hadn't.

We checked in at the 4U Hostel. Pretty much what we expected. Not as nice as last night but I've stayed in worse. Now we're off to find an ATM machine, lunch and a walking tour of Munich.

More tomorrow,

Cathi and Kimmy

Our Evening in Munich 12/30/2002 12:45pm EST

Greetings again!

I an writing to you again from the Easy Everything. This German keyboard is making me crazy. The Y and the Z are transposed. Very odd.

We toured the Marienplatz area of Munich. We saw the Glockenspiel. We climbed 15 flights of stair at St. Peters church and looked out from the top of the clock tower.

We are tired.

More in the morning.

Dateline: Dachau 12/31/2002 1:06pm EST

Today we went to the Concentration camp at Dachau. I do not know that I will be very good at putting into words everything we saw today. This may either be a very long email or a very short one.

Dachau is a suburb of Munich now, but in 1933 was well out of town. It was the first concentration camp and was the training ground for all of the SS officers that went to work at the other camps. It was the model for all other camps as well.

Before we toured anything, we went to see the informational movie they show twice daily. We happened to arrive right as they were about to start the English version. From there we went and rented the device for the Audio tour. We had to wait a while on a waiting list, so we sat and ate some of our leftovers from yesterday and read the books we bought at the museum.

If any of your children have to do a school report on WWII or concentrations camps, I would be happy to lend them this book (it is not sold elsewhere) and email them copies of all the pictures I took. I would also be happy to talk to them.

The audioguide had the overview sections, and the optional extra information sections. We listened to each and every installment.

It begins in the Roll Call area of the camp. It is a big yard where twice per day every single prisoner had to line up and be accounted for. If the count did not line up with the official head count, the prisoners had to wait until each was found. (Keep in mind that they were given only flimsy clothing - and much of the year it is FREEZING here - like today for instance - the wind cut right through us the whole time we were there).

Next we saw the "Jourhouse Bridge". This is where the new prisoners were brought in. The words "Works makes you free" are part of the ironwork in the gate they had to walk through (although it was in German, and I can not spell the words). Chilling, because these people that came through the gates......nothing made them free. (Until 4-29-1944)

Next we toured the "Bunker". It was a place where the "Special Prisoners" were taken. The special prisoners were ones who had caused the most problems for the Nazi party, or prisoners who were being punished. I got lots of pictures here - very stark and depressing.

As you can imagine, the whole camp is surrounded with raised guard towers. Twenty four hours per day these towers were staffed with machine gun wielding SS officers. There was an 8 foot border of grass surrounding the whole camp, on the outside of that was an electrified fence with barbed wire on top, outside of that was a big culvert with water, then another fence on the outside of that. If one of the prisoners even stepped on the 8 foot grassy part they were immediately eliminated by machine gun. This was frequently used as a way to commit suicide by prisoners who could not take it any more. In fact, the big black skeleton looking sculpture in the middle of the roll call area represents those who threw themselves into the electrified fence.

The next thing was the Barracks. There were originally 32 barracks. The foundations of each of them are still there (including barrack number 3 where the medical experiments were done on the prisoners) and the first two barracks are rebuilt. You are allowed to go into one of them where they have reconstructed how they looked on the inside. First you see how they looked in the beginning. As time went on, they kept re-doing them to fit more and more prisoners. By the time the liberators came there were 2000 people in each barrack constructed to house 200. They had built three different examples to illustrate how things had been reconstructed. They also had preserved the toilet facilities.

The end of the tour was the most chilling. There were actually two crematoriums. The first one was not big enough for all of the killing going on, so they had to build "Barrack x" which was the newer, bigger one. Barrack X was also where the gas chambers disguised as showers were. I guess one of the most unnerving things to me was that for most things you could just go up and be right there where such horrific things happened. They did have the actual cremation machines to where you could only get like a foot away, but still, you were just a foot away! and we actually walked THROUGH the gas chamber....chilling....

Barrack X	The Catholic Memorial	The Jewish Memorial

Something I never knew that was also interesting is that there are three religious memorials there. The one in the center is the one from the Catholic church. Off to the right is the one from the Jews and to the left is the Protestant - the protestant one is actually a church where services are held each Sunday at 11am. Then, in the very back of the camp is an opening that leads to the Carmelite Convent. A convent of nuns actually is right there. Their whole mission is to pray that this evil never happens again. That is all they do is pray.

Which is an interesing way to end this installment.....

Dear Lord, please continue to watch over us as we travel. Watch over our family and friends at home as well. Thank you that your goodness and light prevail, even in the shadow of what we saw today.

In Christs Name, Amen.

CB

Ragged in Rome 1/1/2003 12:13pm EST

Greetings from Rome!

We rode on the train all night (more about that in a minute) and are now in Rome. We love the hostel we are staying in. It has been tough to find somewhere where the internet works. There is an Easy Everything here, but a couple of metro stops away from our hostel.

About the train last night, we found it with no problem. For those of you who are interested, Rome in German is something like Rosenburg...so I had to ask around to find our track number. We had a sleeper compartment. We have first class passes and we got the most complete accomodations offered on the train. On our train from Frankfurt to Munich, we looked throughout the train and saw that regardless of if we had first or second class it would have been more than acceptable. In this case, however, anything less than what we had would not have worked.

We got in and got settled down, walked up and down the train to explore, then changed into our jammies. The facilities (other than washbasin) were down the hall so at some point, each of us had to leave the cabin. In each case the car steward (or whatever you would call the gentleman who takes car of the needs of the passengers) invited us to have champagne with him. I am not sure exactly what needs of us as passengers he was trying to meet, but we politely declined.

Kimmy slept like a log (although she awoke quite early). I however, got almost no sleep. I have slept well on trains in the past but could not fall asleep this time. I attribute part of it to the diet coke I had with the Burger King supper we brought on board with us. I also blame whoever kept lighting up cigarette after cigarette hour after hour. Philip can tell you that I could be in a coma and if someone lights up 2 blocks away I will sit up and grimace "What is that!!?"

Because I was not asleep, however, I got to see us go through Austria as it became 2003. Happy New Year to me! I kept seeing fireworks being shot into the sky over the snow. It was beautiful! I tried to awaken Kimmy to no avail. Some of the happiest things that happen on a trip cannot possibly be planned in advance.

Speaking of Austria, the train officials came and knocked on our door. Apparently the train tickets we had did not allow for the fact that we were going to travel through Austria. (Austria was not one of the countries on our rail pass). It only cost me $28.60 to rectify the situation.

I have done alot of thinking on this trip about items I am glad to be lugging around on my back, and ones I would have left at home. Under the plus category, I wondered if lugging this heavy coat around would be worth it. I am SO glad I have it with me. Also, the mini-mag flashlight I brought has been so handy.

Under the leave it home next time category? The hair dryer and converter. I just got a perm before we left and have been going curly headed most days.

Well, I think it is time to go pick up our laundry.

Farewell until tomorrow,

Catherine Banks

Rome Update 1/2/2003 12:03pm EST

Greetings from Rome! Our train to Paris leaves in about an hour and a half. We are catching up on emails and will go retrieve our backpacks from our hotel then be at the train station well ahead of schedule.

Today we toured the Vatican. What an amazing place. We met our tour guide (Frank) at 8:15am, the doors opened at 8:45. We toured solid until after 2pm. Frank teaches art history here in Rome, although he just moved back here after 15 years living in NYC. His love for it was clear. I could go on and on just about the Sistene Chapel, but I won"t

After the Vatican we caught the bus to the Colosseum. We got in today (it was closed yesterday). After that, our plan was to tour the Roman Forum. As we walked up to the gate they closed it. It closes at 3:30. So, I guess we will not tour the forum this time.

We went back to the Pantheon and got to see the inside this time and went back to the same Gelato place we went to yesterday - the cashier recognized us. We blew a kiss to the grandfatherly fellow who dipped the gelato for us. Yummy!

Kimmy is really the queen of navigation. I wear a compass on my fanny pack and somehow still manage occasionally to get us turned around. She is always a good sport about it though, even though I am sure I am running her ragged.

This style of travel is very hard. When we get to Paris it will be the first time we will sleep in the same bed two nights in a row. 5 nights in a row different beds. Hard! I have already told Kimmy that if I do not like our selected hotel in Paris, we are moving, no doubt. We need a nice place to call home for a couple of days. I think we will spend some time in the Tuileries because we both need some time in an open space.

Well, I had better sign off...gotta run catch a train.

Catherine Banks

Bonjour! 1/3/2003 11:55am EST

Hello from Paris!

I am pretty sure I left out a couple of important happenings from Rome, so I'll finish Rome up then bring you up to date.

After we toured the Vatican, we went to the Colosseum and the Pantheon. We had more gelato ( I think I already went over this). Anyway, we got on a very crowded bus, the doors almost wouldn't shut.

KJ was next to a "gentleman" (you'll see that I am using this word loosely). She finally manuvered so that she could move a couple of inches away from him....he manuvered up next to her again ICKY!! She didn't tell me this until we had gotten off. I don't know what I would have done about it if I had known, but I'm glad we got off.

Next, we got onto the Metro. We only had to travel down one stop. I looked down at my fanny pack as I was about to step off and there was this hand unzipping the little pouch where I keep the days $$, one credit card and my ATM card. I quickly looked up to see who the hand belonged to. It was a young lady (again, using the term loosely) of about 14 or 15 I would say. As soon as she realized that she had been spotted she looked down and walked away from me (which was also away from the open door next to me). I was so dumbfounded I didn't know what to do, I just got off the subway and yelled at KJ what had just happened and I got all of my stuff out of that pocket and made sure it was all there (it was).

I had been keeping an extra CC in my security belt inside my clothes as well as the major $$. Now I have moved my ATM and both credit cards into my security belt. I just keep a small amount of $$ in the fanny pack. Looking back I believe that that girl was watching us since the time we used the phone in the Metro. I remember thinking she was odd because she got on the train before us (that we decided to wait for the next one because it was too crowded). She got off after having gotten on. I think she saw that we weren't getting on an had already decided to pick pocket us. She may have seen me getting my phone card out of this little pocket - why else would she have targeted such an odd place?

Anyway, we went and picked up our bags and walked to the train station and got on our train. We had arranged for the best accomodations. Once again I was very glad. I slept better this time. Both of us got a little motion sick trying to take a shower. It was very small and enclosed and we got slammed around alot. We got off and had already decided that we would not be staying at the hostel we had prearranged. I am sick with a cold and we are both very tired.

We decided to call the hotel that PB and I had looked at while we were here this summer. Not only did they have space, but we were able to check right in and have a room at 11am. We went down the street and had a great lunch, then came back to the room and sacked out for 4 hours. We have seen and done so much that we are road weary. After that we got up and walked down the street to the post office and sent home all of the travel books we no longer need in order to lighten our load.

Then we bought some really expensive Yummies from a bakery and ate them on the way to come to the very expensive internet cafe. (9 Euros/hour!)

We are staying on a wonderful street called Rue Cler. It is what you would expect in a traditional Parisian Neighborhood. It has bakerys and butcher shops and chocolate shops and cheese shops. We will spend most of our time here in this one neighborhood with very specially selected outings such as the Eiffel tower which is nearby anyway.

Road Weary but Enjoying Paris,

Catherine Banks

Tomorrow, London 1/4/2003 12:58pm EST

Greetings from the same expensive internet cafe we wrote from yesterday. This morning we stayed in bed until 10am. We then got up, got dressed and went up and down the street collecting items for a planned picnic in the Tuilleries.

Planned, I say....because it started snowing. Apparently it hasn't snowed here in about 7 years, but today it snowed oh I don't know - 6 inches? So we ate our picnic on the tables and chairs in our hotels breakfast room. We had half of a rotisserie chicken, a baguette(sp?), some cream cheese sort of stuff from the cheese shop next door, some strawberries and orange juice.

The cheese shop next door to our hotel is interesting. If you had your eyes closed walking down Rue Cler you would know when you had arrived at our hotel because there is a cheese shop next door and a fish shop across the street. No mistaking that aroma.

After eating we went to the Louvre, then we found a cinema where we saw "Sweet Home Alabama". Over here the title is "Fashion Victim". It was in English with French subtitles. It was great to hear English for a couple of hours.

Now we are at the internet cafe, then back to the hotel where I will take Nyquil and pass out until tomorrow morning. Then we will get up and go to London. Philip was brilliant to suggest that we place London last on our trip. We are very ready to be able to understand people and read things.

I'm going to sign off. We'll send an update tomorrow from London.

Catherine Banks

Leery in London 1/5/2003 5:11pm EST

Good Evening! Well, I guess it isn't quite evening where you are but I assure you it is evening here.

Kimmy and I have had a somewhat eventful day. We had scheduled our Eurostar (Chunnel Train) tickets for 5pm because I had assumed that we would be needing more time in Paris. We decided we were done in Paris, so as soon as we woke up, we made our way up to "Gare Du Nord" (North Train Station). We got our tickets changed to the 1:43pm train which ended up leaving closer to 2:30.

Now, I've never flown between Paris and London. The Eurostar bills itself as a more convenient way to get between the 2 cities because you go city center to city center. The process of getting to the train station couldn't have been any worse than getting to the airport (I have taken the RER into Paris from the airport before and it was easier than this was). The lines were AWFUL! The security process was AWFUL!

I had sprung for first class because I get a 75% discount on Eurostar and from what I read it was supposed to be fairly deluxe, with a gourmet meal, etc. Let me tell you, if this was deluxe I truly would hate to see 2nd class. The car was very badly in need of refurbishment. The food was airplane food, plain and simple.

After we arrived in London (an hour late) we had to figure out how to get through the tube to get to our hostel. On the way a gentleman(you do remember from previous episodes that I use that term loosely, right?) decided to strike up a conversation with me that included asking my name and asking if I was getting nervous. When we got out at our stop I checked to make sure that he hadn't gotten off too. He hadn't. We walked over to our hostel and went inside. I had a bad feeling when they wanted a ?10.00 deposit for the sheets that they handed me. We went up the numerous stairs to our private room. I can say with great clarity that it was the worst hotel room I've ever seen. I looked at Kimmy and said "I don't think we can stay here, what do you think...". She shook her head no. We went down and explained to the front desk that we would be leaving and they said they would leave a note for the manager to see about a refund of my prepaid nights. (Can you say "I contest this charge...."?)

We went to a pharmacy because I needed cough drops and lip balm. Then I hailed a taxi, opened a guide book I had with me and said "Take us to the Westland Hotel". He dropped us off in front and you'd think he'd dropped two little girls at Disneyland. Much much better. We got a room on the third floor that overlooks Kensington Gardens. There is an elevator. And a bathroom. And the sheets were already on the bed. And the people were nice to us. And there was a phone and a TV. (And on the TV were shows in a language that I understand!!!!)

Speaking of TV shows, I turned on the TV and there was a show called "Switching Holidays" (or something like that). It was simply hysterical! There was a group of LOL's and a group of college age guys. Each group wrote down what their dream vacation would be - then they switched - and cameras followed them.

The college boys ended up on a European Motorcoach Tour and the LOLs ended up on a Trek in Morocco. What a hoot! The ladies were having a fabulous time and the boys ....well....the boys weren't.

When we had rested for a few minutes we decided to take Mike Plane up on his offer of taking us out to dinner. We went to a place called Maggie Jones Restaurant. It was really great - very London-y feeling.

Well, on "The Continent" it is after 11pm (Here it's just 10). We haven't been up this late any night on our trip so we're going to catch a cab back to the hotel.

Night Night!

Catherine Banks

Loving London 1/6/2003 6:20pm EST

Wow! Where to start about this wonderful day.......

Last night was the first good night of sleep I've gotten on this trip. I am quite sure it is because I found Frasier on TV last night (That is how I go to sleep at home :-).

We woke up this morning, went to the wonderful breakfast included in our wonderful hotel. (It's amazing how things look different depending on your perspective - when I went to the front desk this morning I said to them "Thank you for being here!" - I am so thankful not to be at that awful place we left yesterday.)

After breakfast I called the box office at the Paladium Theatre and bought 8th row seats to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (Philip wanted to sponsor a night out for dinner, but I decided that, being who he is, he would rather sponsor a theatre night)

After getting dressed we bought tickets (good for 24 hours) on the "Hop on Hop off" tour of London. They have three different loops and our goal is to do them all before our tickets run out tomorrow at noon. We got two of them done today and a couple of stops of the third one before we decided it would be a uniquely London experience to eat at the original Hard Rock Cafe. We had wonderful food there then took a cab back to the hotel. The cabs here are friendly, inexpensive, plentiful, and they smell good.

We got dressed for the play and hailed a cab out front to take us. Where to start about this play. Wow.....Let me just say....Philip...this one is worth another trip back to London with the kiddos...it's that good. I don't see how they would be able to do it justice on the road. I mean, how many theatres could accomodate a flying car and bad guys getting sucked through the roof? (Not to mention a flying outhouse!)

One uniquely touching thing that happened at this performance: I had noticed a group of people on the first row and that they had some flowers with them. I assumed they were going to throw them on stage and just thought they were well prepared theater goers. At the end of the play during the curtain call it became very evident who they were there to see. They started throwing the flowers at the feet of a little girl who was one of the kids who the child snatcher at stolen and whom Mr. Potts had freed. One of many children in this band of sewer dwelling children. She was the 4th one in from the right. She was crying. Crying hard. She was sobbing and singing and the cast members around her were supporting her at the same time. I started crying too - I couldn't help it. What a special night for that little girl. (Not to mention a lady and her niece.)

We thought we had memorized the way to walk back to the Easy Everything from the theatre, but naturally when we left nothing looked familiar. Plus I was running low on cash, so we hailed another cab, told him we needed to stop at an ATM then on to the Easy Everything. He stopped at a bank along the way which was situated so that I had to cross the street and come back across to get back in the cab. I left KJ in the car and took off into the traffic (dressed all in black - I need to put some reflector tape on my coat). Right under the ATM machine was a homeless man laying there begging. Interesting position to be in.....getting money out of an ATM while being begged from. It isn't like you can say you don't have any money. He asked if I had any change and I truthfully told him I didn't. (....I'm glad he didn't ask if I had a ?20 note!).

So here we are at the Easy Everything. It is 11:20pm over here. When we pulled up we see that this location is attached to a Subway sandwich shop. I am in heaven.

We will now go hail a cab and go back to our wonderful hotel. Our plans tomorrow include Westminster Abbey and the Cabinet War Rooms and another play.

Tomorrow is our last day......I can't believe it.

CB

Longing in London

Take Two:

I had this almost finished and had to start over. I have 8 minutes left on my credit and don't want to buy another, so here goes.

We made it back safely last night after our last installment. We set a 7am wake up call and went right to sleep. 7am came early. We quickly dressed and had Weetabix for breakfast.

We caught the first hop on hop off bus to come by the hotel and rode it to Leiceister Square. We got tickets for "Stones in his Pockets". It is a comedy, but we have no idea what it is about. Hopefully it will not be too "adult". Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was just about right for us. I about died when I saw that they had Chitty tickets for tonight at the half price line. I asked and they did not have them last night... that made me feel a little better. Plus it just did not fit in with the plan to go to the TKTS booth yesterday. Besides, it was $$ well spent.

We rode on until we got to the Cabinet War Rooms. This place was FASCINATING! It is the underground offices of the British officials where they basically orchestrated the defeat of the Nazis in WWII. When they won the war they basically turned off the light, left, and closed the door until sometime in the mid 80's when someone decided that it should be a place for the public to come see everything. Everything is very well preserved. You get to see Churchill's bedroom and office and everything. You get to see the actual map where they would plot the movement of ships across the ocean...simply fascinating. We spent about 2 hours in there.

It is right near Westminster Abbey, so we then walked over there. (As we went on all of the different loops around London yesterday, we decided what our top priorities were to go back to and go inside.) I personally thought it was more beautiful then St. Peter's Basilica (don't tell the Pope). As we just began touring, there was an announcement that there would be a Eucharist in the Nave in about 10 minutes. I asked Kimmy if she was interested in going and she agreed, so we headed over there. I would say there were about 15 people there. How overwhelming it was to worship in such a place! Fortunately, my training at St. Stephens in Eutaw paid off because I was able to keep Kimmy up to date on what to expect. We actually had communion. The priest (a lady) prayed about Iraq and North Korea. We then continued our tour.

After we finished there, we decided to walk up Regent Street for the shopping.

We stopped at a traditional London sort of place and Kimmy got fish and chips and I got Shepherds Pie. I hate lamb so I took one bite of mine and gagged.

We have been ambling up the street for a couple of hours, Kimmy wanting to go in stores and me wanting to get out of them. We're quite a pair. We had a Starbucks even.

We got as far as Leiceister Square. Outside of a movie theater there were alot of news cameras and crowd barriers. We tapped a young lady on the shoulder and asked her what was going on. It apparently is the premiere of "Gangs of New York" and they were expecting Leonard DiCaprio momentarily. We took a picture of the hubbub and left.

Which brings us back to the Easy Everything on Oxford Street.

We'll probably go amble a bit more because we have a couple of more hours until curtain time.

See you tomorrow!

Catherine Banks

Postlog

After "Stones in His Pockets" we took the Underground back to our hotel. As we were getting dressed for bed and packed for departure, we watched the local news. Apparently the day we arrived in London they had raided a flat in London where they had found a group preparing Ricin, which is a poison, used for terrorism. I'm somewhat glad we hadn't known that at the time. We got up very early the next morning and flew home. The flight was blissfully uneventful.