Millidream III: Catch up 2018-6- Family trip after PSLE

Mid of 2018, WK and I discussed about our year end family trip, to pick somewhere further than Asia, to celebrate Lynn's milestone year (completion of PSLE). At first we though of the US, because it had always been my dream to visit the Grand Canyon. After research, we decided that the flight to US will be too taxing for Lynn, who tend to suffer motion sickness. So we picked Europe instead, and decided on Italy and London.

I made a big boo-boo on the planning, with the initial flights booked for the first 2 weeks of school holidays. Then I realised that PSLE results will be released on the Friday of the first week of school holiday, and Lynn has to select Secondary school by following week. In the end we had to pay to change the tickets to earlier dates. And earlier meant being absent from school in the final week before school holidays, which led to her missing a lot of fun activities, such as graduation concert and prize giving ceremony. And that's not all; that year the PSLE result was released not on Friday, but on Thursday, which we spent flying back from London to SG.. haiz.. my bad..

We took a red eye flight, which took off at 11.30pm. Lynn did not tell me that she wasn't feeling too well those few days. She slept for about 8 hours, and woke up with motion sickness and fever. We had a torturous next 10 hours. She puked for about 2 hours on the remaining flight from SG to London (transit), still didn't feel well for the next 3 hours in transit. She slept for about an hour when she boarded the next flight, but woke up to puke again on the 3 hour flight to Rome. We then took about an hour to clear immigration, and she still puked a little on the cab ride to the hotel. We finally checked in about 12.30 pm in Rome (7.30 pm SG time).

For the next few days in Rome, she was down with fever almost half the time. She "survived" with panadol and sleep. She slept all afternoon upon checkin, and then was awake most of the first night. On day 2 morning, we visited the Colosseum; in the afternoon, her fever came up again, so she slept, and then again she couldn't sleep well on day 2 night.
On day 3, we were supposed to do a dinner tour, but we decided that she should stay in, so only both of us went.
Finally by day 4, she's more or less fully recovered, and we enjoyed a great cultural tour of the famous Vatican Museum.

From Rome, we took the train to Florence. In Florence, it was more museums. It's important to take guided tour for these museums, which we did, to appreciate the historical context and significance of the art pieces.

On day 7, we took a day trip from Florence to visit Pisa. Of course we took the touristy photos of holding up the the leaning tower.

The next day, we traveled to Venice. Venice is a beauty tourist place. On day 9, we were supposed to take the gondola ride, but I chicken out due to the cold. While the 2 of them went for it, I sipped coffee in warmth.

On day 10, we departed Italy for London. I have always love London. It's very metropolitan, but I still love it for it's old-in-new kind of charm. On day 11, we braved the cold to visit Buckingham Palace and Oxford street. But London was just too freezing cold, so we didn't last too long outdoors.

On day 11, we went to 221B Baker Street! Although Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character, the allure of this great detective is just too great. It was so fun for us, a family of fans. On day 12, which I remembered to be about 4 degrees, we hid indoors at a shopping mall. We ended this last day in London with shopping at the Harry Porter shop at King's Cross Railway station.

When we boarded our plane on day 13 evening, it was the wee hours of Thursday in SG. After a 13 hour plane ride, we touched down at 6pm in Changi. My dad had collected the results for Lynn, and he sent us photos of her results. We were trilled at the good results. Still I can't help but "suan" her a little about her HCL results, which she got distinction - I said "新加坡的华文水平没药救了". Which she did not understand...haiz..

Here's a very small collage of the tonnes of photos that we took of this memorable trip.

Our B&B in Rome