Ali – Before we left the US, we told all our friends and neighbors they should come to Europe and we’ll meet them wherever they land. This was a bold declaration and we probably said it a bit like you would say, “Let’s get together again soon!” while leaving your 20-year highschool reunion to the guy at your table who’s name you can’t remember. However we were actually called to account for this promise when the Colemans contacted us two weeks ago and said they were headed to London for Winter break.
I managed to find an AirBnB right around the corner from where they were staying in the Putney area of London that was supposedly a “rare find” as “Ben’s place is usually booked”. So I took that as a sign that we were meant to go and made the reservation for Friday and Saturday night. Next we needed plane tickets, which we found on the bare bones European airline EasyJet, but the only option was flying in and out of London Luton Airport. If you have never heard of London Luton, let me assure you there is a good reason, which became apparent to us later in our adventure…stay tuned.
So we made the bold decision to pull Maya out of school for half a day and caught our 4:00 pm flight, arriving in Luton 2 hours later (for reference that’s 5pm London time). Then, after using three different transportation systems, getting kicked off one train for no apparent reason, and almost losing Maya behind the closing doors of a departing train, we arrived in Putney…around 8pm. Yea. 3 hours later.
Our delightful host, Ben, met us outside the flat, and he was privy to the blow by blow travel saga, as I updated him at every turn. The first thing he said was, “Yea, I didn’t want to crush your soul when you said you were flying into LTN and tell you what a wanker that trip would be.” Ah well what’s a little soul sucking. We were finally in London!
The next morning we went out touring in London while we waited for the Colemans to arrive. I imagine London is absolutely lovely as seen from our 6th floor flat….if one could just see through the pea soup that they use for air.
We also went to the nearby Thames, which may or may not be a lovely river. Intrepid rowers were being very British and rowing blindly along, headless of whatever large object may be just ahead hidden in the fog (boat, bridge, shore, dinosaur…)
We wandered through some markets, giggling and crying at the ‘cheap’ food. “Look Joe! Only 2 pounds for a brownie??? They are giving this sh!t away!!” Clearly living in Zurich has slightly skewed our sense of reasonable pricing. 
At last we got the word that the Colemans were approaching and ran to the train station to surprise them, which we bungled, disqualifying ourselves from doing any spy work for MI-5. 
After the Colemans settled into their BnB, we headed out to our planned activity: the Hop on hop off bus and the London Eye. Pam Coleman had booked it all through Get Your Guide, which we used a lot in Paris and found to have a bit of shady quality when it came to details about how to turn your app-based confirmation of purchase into an actual tour. We ended up on a lovely walking tour through half of London chasing down the elusive Hop on Hop off app voucher redeemer, who seemed to have just left each new spot where we were told at the last spot we would find him. It was the crappiest yet most fun scavenger hunt ever. 
At last a Hop on Hop off bus driver took pity on us and let us on the bus, which was absolutely awesome. I highly recommend the convertible, double decker tour bus in London at night in winter. We had the whole open air arctic tour experience to ourselves because what other nutjob tourists would sit there when there was a perfectly good bus interior?
Eventually we hopped off the Hop On Hop Off bus -which is the other part of the experience according to the name- and headed to the London Eye. Now again, our Get Your Guide voucher was pretty shady and so it wasn’t clear when we got to the ticket booth what exactly they were going to let us do. After a manager was called over to examine our documentation and told us he had never seen the like, he gave us our tickets and we zoomed through a surprisingly short line. The London Eye did not disappoint. 
Finally we decided to head back to Putney for dinner and bed. The Abraham clan had an early trek back to Luton and the Colemans had a bus ride to Stonehenge.
The next morning we said goodbye to our cozy airBnB and headed to train number one. Alas, there was a worker strike going on, and our train was replaced with a bus, which arrived at the next stop too late for us to catch train number two. The unsympathetic employee at the service desk said it would be two hours before the next train. At that point we gave up on the London train system and opted for Uber. One could really see on the Uber map how bloody far away Luton was and the 80 pound Uber fare was indeed soul sucking. 
At last we made our plane, this time with bare bones Veuling Airlines, and all was well…until Joe started experiencing intestinal distress at 20,000 feet. Guess left over Indian food for breakfast may not have been the best idea.
When we got back to Zurich there was a letter from Maya’s school letting us know that Maya wasn’t in school for half a day on Friday and that her irresponsible parents should do a better job of letting the school know when they plan to neglect her education. Now that’s Swiss efficiency!