From Wales to London to L.A or the longest day ever.

Monday, leaving day had arrived. We were all packed and ready to head to the train. We all look pretty happy here, but we were all a bit sad. We did have lots to look forward too; Vikki and Matt, London, watching movies on a flight, Disneyland ... so it was excited-sad. 

Linda and Marcia kindly dropped us and our enormous amount of luggage off at the train. 

See all our sad faces. We were sad. 

Our train - especially taken for all the train lovers.

It wasn't too long until we made it to Cardiff. 

Proof that it was Cardiff - Principality Station.

This train looked fast. London here we come!

We made it to London, navigated the tubes and meet Vikki at our main tube station. She gave us keys to the apartment and we headed there, dropped the bags and started the same journey all over again. Though this time we were headed for the Natural History Museum and we didn't have to lug massive suitcases with us. 

The Natural History Museum is amazing. There are skeletons everywhere and lots of information. It isn't as big as the British Museum but that is totally ok. We didn't have a lot of time so our aim was dinosaurs and find a Moa (thanks Sir David Attenborough for inspiring this search).

The dinosaur area was filled with dinosaurs. Brayden, you have to come here one day, you would love it. The skeletons are real or animatronic and the whole space walks you through the history to the physical aspects of their bodies. 

There is also a life-sized T-Rex and it moves!

Next we headed on our Moa hunt. Found a few things in the bird area that were quite fascinating, including the tiniest birds we'd ever seen. We also found this little guy.

No Moa though. 

But a giant sloth! Prudence, Hannah was especially excited about this for you.

Finally, after a little help from a friendly worker, we found this guy.

We wandered around for a bit longer, finding a giant tree and a pretty view.

The exit was through the gift shop. Hannah wanted to bring home a sloth. 

Thanks for a great time Natural History Museum but it's time for us to go experience a London Christmas (in October). 

We were meeting Vikki outside at the Natural History Museum Ice Skating Rink. The whole place was filled with fairy lights and there was a large Christmas tree in the middle of it. We thought it was pretty magical and couldn't wait to attempt to skate. 

Soon we had our skates on and were ready to go. Vikki wasn't sure how her knee was going to go and Matt was saying he'd never skated before. Hmmmmm.

But we were off. Matt was clearly telling stories, luckily for Viks because her knee was a bit bung on the ice. Fortunately, we were going the right way for her other leg to be the useful one. Asher was off like a speed skater and the rest of us Spragg's attempted a wobbly start but were soon off. Hannah seemed to favour holding our hands though, hmmmm. Vikki kindly took some photos of us zooming around.

We did stop for a few selfies and group photos by the tree. 

We were all quite happy the session was only 50 minutes. Going around in a circle gets boring pretty quickly. We got our skates off and then headed off in an Uber to find some kai. There was a small wait but we got to check out a cool street that was filled with awesome shops and food places, including this gingerbread house. 

Dinner was of normal London standard - yum! - but then it was time for some Christmas lights!!! Carnaby was on (Regent St was up but not on, seriously, couldn't they have done a practice run for us?!) and looked amazing. 

Our final stop was a wee NZ cafe for some dessert. It was cool to see some Kiwiana happening and to spot some L&P flavoured stuff (though does anyone actually like L&P?!). A few pieces of lolly cake was consumed (not by me) and I think Asher persuaded Matt to have it as their wedding cake. ;)

The next morning we said farewell to Matt and Vikki (very sad face), but hopefully, we'll see them in 2019. 

Thanks for being such amazing hosts and allowing us to crash a number of times. We love you guys!!!!!!

We packed and repacked to make sure all our bags weighed less than 23kgs and then headed for the bus/tube/airport. 

We did make it, and surprisingly seemed to run out of time before we had to board. 

12 hours later we arrived in LAX. We then spent a further 3 hours in customs!!! WT! Seriously. Actually. It was soooo boring (glad I had my book). (and it was still the same day we left.

Dan got taken to a small room, where he sat for an hour, and then answered about 5 questions and left. WT!! 

But we made it, just in time for Asher to get a bleeding nose and for us to drive to our hotel. 

Bed = releif