Or should I say, relatively quiet. We have nothing planned other than lunch and a movie with some friends tomorrow. It’s good to do nothing, especially when you travel all the time.

I already mentioned we spent last weekend shopping. We spent Sunday looking for my suit, although Mimi still managed to find something to buy. We actually started the day by having brunch at Harrods in one of their restaurants. Pizza and Pasta. We got there early so luckily we got a seat. Within half an hour, there was a queue…a really long one. The food was good, but expensive as you’d expect in Harrods. We followed that up with macaroons at Laduree (yes Jason, I know the one in Harrods is over-priced, but I’m not going to fly to Paris just for macaroons) which were pretty good (mmm…macaroons). Oh yeah, we then bought some gelato from one of the shops in Harrods (mmm…gelato). Well fed and satisfied, we then went on to do my suit hunting and got lost trying to walk from Knightsbridge to Chelsea (the tube wasn’t working). We eventually found one, but had to get the pants altered. We’re picking it up this evening from the shop, which is just on Kensington High Street so it’s a short walk.

I spent part of this past week in Amsterdam again and had a heck of a time getting back to London on Wednesday. It was just a bad travel day that started with me taking the wrong train from Amsterdam Centraal. I was trying to get to a customer near the the Amsterdam ArenA and got on a train thinking it would stop there. The signs all indicated that it would. What I didn’t know was that those weren’t really in effect yet as the were still finishing parts of the Amsterdam ArenA train station. So you could take a train from Amsterdam ArenA to Amsterdam Centraal, but not the reverse. As the train speed past my stop, I thought “ok, I’ll just get off at the next one and take a taxi.” The problem was that it didn’t stop for quite awhile. I started to see Dutch farms and windmills and then I really started to get worried. In the end, the train stopped at Utrecht and I had to hop on a train to go backwards. When the train conductor came around to check tickets, I just said “I got on the wrong train and now I have to go back”. He tried rather hard not to laugh and just said “ok” and moved on, probably out of embarrassment for me.

When it came time for me to fly back to London, I found out my flight was cancelled. Apparently there had been a gas leak at Heathrow and all flights out had to be delayed or cancelled and all flights in had to be diverted. Mine was one of those that didn’t get to take off, hence the cancellation. Initially, the guy at the counter wasn’t very helpful. He basically said I had to stay in a hotel at my own expense. I wasn’t too happy about it and got him to wait-list me on another flight. I then had to clear customs, walk to the gate (which was at the farthest end of the airport), clear security (they do it at the gate in Amsterdam) and just wait in line until I got to the desk only for them to tell me I didn’t get on the flight. They had however, managed to book me on a BMI flight but it was pretty much the last one out. I didn’t get back to London until midnight.

Time to stop blogging and get started with our weekend of doing nothing.

Update (this is me complaining, so don’t read if you don’t want to be subjected to it): I’ve just picked up my suit and found that this week, it’s selling for £30 less ($75 AUD for those converting)! The problem is that I can’t return it because I had the pants altered! The thing is, if they didn’t reduce the price this week, I’d still be feeling pretty good about the price I paid. Now I just feel foolish. All they’ve managed to get themselves now is a customer feeling cheated, meaning it’s unlikely I’d buy another suit of the same brand unless it was ridiculously cheap. Yeah I know we’ve all been stung by this problem before, but couldn’t they have at least waited 2 weeks before lowering the price? That way I probably wouldn’t have known. I know it’s difficult on their part because there’s always a customer coming back in a week’s time to collect something they bought the week before. Then again, they aren’t always having sales, so they would only have to deal with this problem every now and then. If they had something like a low price guarantee valid for say a month, we’d all be happier. Instead, all they get in “cheating” me out of £30 is future loss of business, which is definitely worth more than the £30 saving I would have received.