Smallest hotel room ever

 9/23: The kids enjoyed their last swim in the local Richmond pool, and Bob and I walked to the Sander's place to grab a few items we had sent to them and return their French press that we had borrowed. We enjoyed our last night at our Richmond place, and started packing up to leave for Salzburg tomorrow. We enjoyed Richmond and the London area more and more as we spent more time here. We loved walking to the pool and to the nearby parks and shops. The public transport is super cool and we love how easy it is to get around. Our Airbnb here has been fine, but we are ready to leave - it is very close to Heathrow, the Richmond train station, and one of the grocery stores, so the combined noise in the middle of the night has been challenging for our sleeping.

Last breakfast in our Richmond place

9/24: After schoolwork in the morning, we had an early lunch and left for the Gatwick Airport at noon (the latest we could check out of our place). Our flight to Salzburg was the next day at 0840, so in order to not leave our Richmond place super early, we decided to spend the night at the Gatwick Airport Hotel (Bloc). It was a new experience for all of us! We took the train from Richmond to Clapham Junction (huge train station) and transferred to another train that took us to Gatwick Airport. It was really nice to not feel like we were in a hurry, and we were very thankful to not be making that trip at 0500 the next morning!

We settled into an airport coffee shop to allow the kids to do schoolwork, though connecting to the airport WiFi was problematic. We managed to get a few things done, enjoyed our dinner, and settled into our itty bitty room. The hotel's slogan is "eat, sleep, fly" which is exactly what we did!

Me standing at the hallway door. Just the essentials - beds and a bathroom! Fortunately we were able to check our bags before we went to dinner, otherwise we would not have been able to move in the room!

We all snuggled in our bed and watched part of a WWII documentary.