Well guys, it's been a fair few days since my last blog. So sorry for that, but we've all just been so tired that I haven't found the energy or time to blog before I fall asleep! But the next few blogs will get you all up to date :)
So, the night of my last blog, when we were staying in Nottingham turned out to be more exciting then we thought! It was a bout 10pm and I had been asleep for about half an hour, (Mum, Dad and Sam however had been asleep for longer) when the hotel fire alarm went off! I woke up feeling rather startled, but soon realised what was going on and was happy to see that the fire wasn't in our room. Meanwhile Dad was trying to turn off what he thought was his phone alarm lol (he tends to be a bit loopy after just waking up), Mum was getting herself out of bed and Sam was still in a deep sleep! (I have no idea how, as the alarm was extremely loud!). When Dad finally came to his senses he grabbed the passports, Mum grabbed her purse and I grabbed my phone whilst shaking Sam yelling "Sam wake up! It's a fire alarm! We have to get out! Sam there's a fire! SAM!!!" ....he still slept lol.
Mum and I quickly grabbed our coats as Dad finally managed to drag Sam out of bed and we all ran downstairs and out the front door... with no shoes on. Now I'm not sure of the exact temperature at this point in time, but the maximum for that day was somewhere around 3 degrees. So, we were standing on cement in our PJs and coats, in negative degree weather along with the rest of the hotel guests feeling like we were in the arctic. Then 2 minutes later the hotel officials say, "It's safe to go back in now. It was a false alarm... probably just another person smoking in the rooms." .....did I mention that I hate smoking? lol.
We promptly returned to our rooms feeling very cold, a bit shaken and rather tired, Sam on the other hand still had barely any idea of what was happening haha. Thankfully we all managed to get back to sleep fairly quickly :) As unpleasant as this experience may have been, it's one that we will definitely remember!
The next day we up bright and early and got some breakfast at Starbucks. As per usual it was really cold so we warmed ourselves up with a nice hot chocolate and coffee :) The mugs were huge! Mum and I got a small and it was about the equivalent of a large in most places. As I don't go to Starbucks back in Australia, I'm not sure if this is a global thing or not, but I like it :) There are Starbucks' everywhere here! I swear sometimes I see 3 or more on the one street! Very different to at home.
We quickly popped down to a local store that we had seen the night before called 'schuh' which is, as you might have guessed, a shoe store. We saw this amazing brand in this shop called 'Irregular Choice' which is pretty much exactly what the brand is like. The shoes are like nothing I've ever seen before! They all looked very Marie Antoinette inspired and were very beautiful. As I am a shoeaholic I ended up getting a pair of nice white shoes with a gold decorative pattern on them and flowers on the front. So lovely :) While shopping, we also got Sam a new coat and checked out some of the Christmas decorations in the shopping mall. This same day we went to visit family in suburban Nottingham :) We met Nan's sister Connie, her daughters and their family and had really nice lunch at their home, which was just overall a really lovely experience :) We spent the afternoon their too and then just drove back to the hotel.
We then went looking for a place to have dinner and came across a place called T.G.I. Fridays (check them out here http://www.tgifridays.co.uk/), which is a restaurant kind of similar to Hog's Breathe in Australia.... but better :) It was lovely and warm inside which is always nice in this kind of weather. The place was buzzing! The restaurant was American themed and had heaps of decorations up, music and videos around the place.The bar tenders were doing all that flippy bottle stuff and the whole place just looked fantastic! The service was great! We had this waiter named Kurt, who was a blast. He was not only our waiter but was making us laugh all night :) And the food was amazing, such a large variety of different foods, yummy foods and lots of it! The plates were huge! If you're ever going to the UK, keep an eye out for one of these joints, it was the kind of place that could suit a family, a couple or a group of mates. It really made our night!
Heathrow.
Our travel agent had arranged for us to meet a transfer car(the people who hold up the cards with your name on it) at the airport so that we could drop off our hire car near the airport and get a lift to our hotel in London. However the only way to get a transfer car was to say that we had travelled in on a flight. The travel agent chose a Manchester to London flight that arrived at 12:30pm. We arrived at Heathrow at around 10:30am and had to wait for 2 hours before our driver was scheduled to pick us up. I read to make the time pass, Mum just waited and Dad & Sam walked around the airport, checking that our driver hadn't arrived early. It hit 12:30, so we got our baggage and stood over at the arranged meeting place, after an hour of waiting and reading every single driver's sign in the airport and even putting a call out for our driver over the PA system, no driver had arrived. (by the way, we have already payed for the transfer car). A very annoyed Dad then called up a taxi service to take us to our hotel in London. Our hotel is located directly across the road from both St. Pancras and King Cross Station :)
We had a very nice couple of days, although not much sight seeing took place, it was still rather eventful! My London blog will be up soon... plenty of sightseeing there! :)
Hope you're all well!
Mia
xx
Hope you're all well!
Mia
xx
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