We’re in the UK!

Leaving Las Vegas

Last year when we flew to Manchester, UK, we spent the morning at South Point Casino betting the horses and made a lot of money.  This year we tried to do the same, but the gods of gambling had other things in mind.  We lost.  Leaving the casino, we had time for lunch on the way to the airport, so we stopped at a Five Guys hamburger place.  This was our first time trying this chain.  It’s sort of like In and Out – Elaine liked it better while I thought it was about the same.  Good burgers, good fries.  Then we turned the car in and took the shuttle to await our Virgin Atlantic flight for London Gatwick.  The flight left right on time.

Arriving London

The flight was as pleasant as flights can be these days.  After drinks and dinner, Elaine watched two episodes of House of Cards on the entertainment system and fell in love with it.  I watched the flight map (exciting!) and tried to doze with limited success.  We were served breakfast and then arrived at Gatwick about thirty minutes early.

Clearing immigration control was a breeze and our bags were on the carousal when we got to baggage claim – take note American air lines, it shouldn’t take forever to get the bags to the customers.  We had a two hour wait for our scheduled bus shuttle to Heathrow Airport (where we had to go to pick up our car), but we exchanged our tickets for an earlier bus.  The hour ride to Heathrow was uneventful.

Then we called the Renault agent and he came to pick us up in our new Renault Megane Berline.  We drove back to the office to sign some documents, and the nice guy (the boss) showed us the ins and outs of the keyless car, shown below after a masterful parallel parking job.

We immediately had to stop for gas as they give you just enough to find a gas station.  I filled it up with diesel (for £55 = about $92).  We had to stop briefly to reprogram the GPS (SatNav to Brits) to be in English rather than French.  Coded Windsor in as our destination, and we were off to our first stop in the UK.  We parked near the center for a brief walkabout and some lunch – shared a nice appetizer platter and glasses of Shiraz – and then we headed for our B&B for the night.

76 Duke Street is the name (and the address, of course) of the B&B.  Julia greeted us and showed us our digs.  She rents to only customer per night.  The bedroom was on the second floor overlooking Duke Street.  The bathroom is not en-suite, but that is no problem as you have the run of the entire second floor and the bathroom is just down the hall.

After much needed showers (and a short nap for Elaine), we headed out for a walk downtown for dinner.  We had reservations at 7:30 at Al Fassia, a Moroccan restaurant that is highly rated on Trip Advisor.  We ordered a nice bottle of Moroccan red wine – very good.  For started I had fried sardines with a nice tomato sauce while Elaine had grilled eggplant salad.  For mains, I had a delicious lamb tangine, and Elaine had chicken tangine with sweet onions and raisins.  It was all very good.

Then we stumbled back to the B&B for some much needed sleep.