Day 8 & 9, Brighton

I didn't get time to blog last night. I actually tried, but had some computer issues which swallowed up my time. Yesterday was relatively uneventful. We went to the British Museum, where we saw some Eqyptian mummies and an interesting display of performance things like old puppets (marinettes) and some masks/costumes worn in different areas of the world (for performance). I went to the travel center & figured out a plan for how/when to get back to Gatwick Airport. Then we went to the Toy & Model Museum. We did a bunch of walking around, and ate our last fish & chips (Genci's had enough grease, even though it does taste good). I had Thai food. The food has been good here - there are all kinds of different restaurants & take out places to choose from. We returned to the playground (for at least an hour), where Genci & I huddled together (cold!) while the kids played & played & played.

We retreated to the hotel to warm up & recover. The kids fell asleep, so I took a bus ride by myself to the next town (& back) along the coast. It went through residential streets, which was interesting. It reminded me a bit of Germany (I don't know - just something about the layout of the streets over the hills), and a bit of military housing (there were a bunch of small identical houses in a row). It made me glad to live in America where we have more space and bigger yards.

Today we're going to try to get on a standby flight to Albania. Our booking is for tomorrow (the first day it would let the airline guy rebook), but there may be openings today (he said the planes on this route had plenty of unbooked seats). I'm dreaded the scene at the airport. The airline guy predicted 5-6 hour waits in line when things started up again. I'm hoping that things have gotten a little sorted out in the last 2 days.

At 10am (hopefully, if we're packed and ready by then), we'll take a bus that should take us to Gatwick Airport in 50 minutes. The flight we want is at 4:50pm, so that should be enough time. If we miss the 10am bus, we can take the 11am bus.

I'm not in a terrible rush to get to Albania (Genci is, though), but I do feel like we're treading water here, and we're not really prepared for cold weather. We do have long sleeve shirts & sweatshirts, but end up feeling beaten down by the cold wind after a couple of hours outside. So I'm looking forward to that changing. I think this will be a trying day for the kids (lots of airport time & then 3 hours on a flight, if lucky), but am hoping for the best.

OK. Off to finish packing.