The night of departure has come and I’ve not done much to plan for it. I bought a 3-day city pass for London (London Pass with Oyster Card for travel) that will get us into the touristy things, even some that are already free, and some that will be closed on the first. I got a rental car outside the city so that I can practice driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road while seeing national parks, historic hillsides, and Stonehenge – Caleb’s bucket list item. I tried getting a place through Airbnb, but that went sour quickly and instead of saving half on the 3 nights in London and helping the guy with rent, we ended up paying double, and especially more for NYE night.

We go for Pizza Empress at 7:30, say bye to puppies at 8:30, are checked in at the airport by 9:30, and through security at 10:30 for an 11:30 departure. I’ve flown with Sparky under the seat in front of me. Tonight we fly with a falcon in the plane. I think next time it will be something that swims. We land in Doha where we’ll transfer to the plane, complete with stairs to another floor, that will take us to Heathrow Airport, the third busiest in the world, while we try to sleep in a cramped economy space. I wake up for a snack at 3am, to pee at 6am, and breakfast at 7am (all Bahrain time) as we pass an in-flight puke splatter on our way off the plane at 7am London time.