I'VE STARTED, SO....

I'm finished, so is Lin. Run to airport was good, apart from taxi driver falling asleep. Problem with British Airways, they had overbooked the flight, so swapped to a larger aircraft & seat numbers didn't correspond. This made boarding really slow and the 2 sweet seats I had booked and paid for turned in a cramped 3 seat where the outside person had sleeping sickness, no locker storage & had luggage all over the place, including on her lap. Net result we could never get out of our seats. Nightmare on 14 1/2 hour flight. Good news was we saw the last episode of The Confession which had been taken off of catch-up. Food indifferent on plane, didn't get much sleep. Landed on time but there was so much congestion in arrivals that shut off access to passport control. So, 2 hours after landing we finally got out. Buenos Aires seems very nice where we are, the hotel room is great, it's conveniently located to things we want to do & the port. It's hot 31 Celsius, 88 F for our US friends, but we chilled with beer & Argy beef at a pavement cafe & visited where Evita is resting. We are so tired that it's bedtime at 7pm, better shape 2morrow. Just watched Goobers live on TV - what a shambles. Just had a dulce de leche croissant & coffee to caffeine & sugar rush us to alerthood. It's not worked.

GETTING READY TO DEPART

I was saying to Lin how fed up I was with riots in HK & Chile & problems sorting out the details. She said cheer up, things could be worse. So, I cheered up & sure enough things got worse. Corona virus, alias Covid19 got started. You can see our different approaches to personal protection, Lin likes fully blacked out mask with full VR, while I prefer lycra. The period since Xmas has been hell what with family health issues leaving Lin & I exhausted and way behind with preparation. The benefit with having GGS Leo for the week has been the fantastic increase in my knowledge of dinosaurs. Do dinosaurs fly - no. Jurassic Park should be called Cretaceous Park. No one knows what the letters in K-T boundary mean & the dinosaur with the shortest name is the Minmi. Our  first stop is Buenos Aires, Argentina. Someone told me that down there they like that orange drink that Butch used to advertise.

GETTING READY

Wow! Frantic doesn't cover it. Trying to get ready to depart on our world trip in about 7 weeks time. We sorted out our route and flights last May, what could go wrong? Chose our path RTW carefully for a serene trip, crusing around the horn, railway journeys and small guided group on public transport around Japan. One of our stops is Hong Kong, advertised as a law abiding, peaceful place. Well, I've just ordered the riot gear and gas masks. Just as well 'cos Santiago in Chile, we're also visiting, is a hotbed of revolution against the government with riots, barricades and fires. Apart from that then, what more could go wrong? Well the travel agent, the oldest after Thomas Cook went broke in December. Luckily for us Cox & Kings was rescued with no problems for us, fingers crossed! Trying to book seat reservations with all the different airlines is fun. Some bookings are code shares with BA and confirming details like passport info is really difficult. Researching the detail is fun. I feel I need the internet when in Japan, what with funny alphabet & lingo. Rely on free public WiFi in the most advanced techno country in the world - no chance. OK, going on shinkansen (bullet train), book over the internet? No chance. Ah well, good job we've got a guide for the first part. I don't know how we are going to cope with the low tech stuff - paper walls, sleeping on the floor with wooden pillows. Let's see.

HATS OFF TO..

Linda, for putting up with me dragging her up & down spiral staircases, mountains, mines & quarries. Saw Royal Welch Fusiliers with their brown flashes, & Black Watch with their feathers, both unique I think. Scotland weather was dreadful, don't go to Wales, get speeding tickets there you know. So tour of Britain done, where next? A Dutch guy I met in the pub suggested take ferry to Hook of Holland drive down the coast of Holland, Belgium & France, take in the sights & ferry back Dieppe to Newhaven. What do you think?

LINCOLN

The further south we go the better the weather. Climbed the steep, steep hill up to the castle. It's so steep, it's called the steep. Saw Magna Carta which has some interesting stories around it. It all got started when K John lost the barons their land in France, but insisted on taxing them on it! So they got together & thrashed it out. The Archbishop took it away & put it on paper for the king to seal. It was written in a shorthand ancient Latin, which he couldn't read. So he took it to someone to read it to him & discovered he had been stitched up. War broke out & the barons bought in the French to put the French King's son on the throne. It didn't resolve itself until K John died(murdered) & his 9 year son Henry took over. Went to Brown's Pie shop which was smashing, if heavy duty.

197, 198,,,

199 steps up to the Abbey at the top. Whitby is a nice town of cobbled streets, tourist shops, jet & expensive car parks. Never saw Dracula. The YHA garden at the top was very nice. Good journey down to Lincoln, although satnav lady took us down some interesting roads. Had to go through spittal in street.

BEAMISH...

is a living museum with bits set in 1820's, 1900's, 1940's & 1870's. We travelled on trains, trams, charabancs & busses. We went down coal mines & saw the steam engine mine winding gear running.  Steam rollers, horse drawn carriages & farm animals. The staff were great, we really enjoyed chatting to them. Weather good at last, but windy.