This is London: Day 1

Yes!!! Vacation!!! And just in time – my head is swirling with way too many things that have to do with work and responsibilities – I need some time to just relax, rewind, unwind, unload and forget.

And what better way than to run across the big bad pond and drop right into Londontown!!

Terminal 1
This is my first time running through the new Terminal 1 at Pearson in Toronto – very posh indeed. And while I sort of totally understand and actually like the self-service kiosks – they are also a bit cumbersome to use when you’re lugging 2 or more bags.

Only Terminal 1 downfall? The Tim Horton’s is only a half service desk – no breakfast sandwiches for me! Sigh. I switched allegiance and went to the Starbucks for my iced tea lemonade and a scrumptious slice of Lemon Poppy seed cake.

Late Plane
While all the digital displays and lovely airport personnel insisted our flight was on time – you kind of know your plane is late when it is isn’t even attached to the gate deck and the flight staff are all waiting at the door with their luggage. But – c’est ca – I just settled down to play with my iPhone until something drove up.

Pod People
When we did finally get on our way – we were pleased to find our place was a fairly nice one. First class was made up of all these individual pod sections where you can actually sleep lying down, have your own personal flat screen TV and a footstool for added storage.

Not of course that we were in those seats – we just got to walk past them. However – our economy class digs weren’t too bad either. Even though our seats were labeled A and C – Mom and I were alone in a two-seater on the left side with a window and aisle – and everyone had their own personal TV/movie system with a ton of stuff to watch. Legroom was pretty decent, as was storage space. So much better than my last trans-Atlantic flight with Air Transat – need to remember that for the next time.

De-icing
After we were settled in, the captain let us know that the wings needed de-icing – which while I know is a damned consistent occurrence on flights in our weather – it still makes me nervous. By now we were pretty late and I believe the waiting around for de-icing took at least 30 minutes more – someone didn’t want us to get to London anytime soon.

Movie Time
Good thing the entertainment system was already up and running – time to settle in for a movie! Only problem was – I picked District 9 to start with since I hadn’t seen it yet. I got through about 25 minutes of it and couldn’t take it anymore. Watching a movie yourself in an enclosed space with headphones is NOT the ideal way to watch a movie that both slightly scares you and grosses you out at the same time. I had to give up by the time Wikus decides to settle on his first round of cat food.

Instead, I then settled on two mindless movie runs, to get the weird visions out of my head, and watched Harry Potter again, and then Twilight for the third time in my life.

Air Canada: -1
Only really crappy part of the flight: the food. Air Canada needs to seriously get with the program. Even Air Transat rocked in the food department. I barely kept the food on this flight down. Thank God for my earlier delight in lemony goodness.

Tons of babies – silent!
Twisted recurrence on this trip: lots of babies – but every single one of them silent. Not a peep through the whole flight – someone above was finally on my side!

Finally – in London
Well – in the end the flight went quite well with only a few rounds of turbulence. Ica met us at Heathrow and we took a supremely long ride on the Tube to her area at Holloway. However – to my delight – I reacquainted myself with the wonderful lady’s Tube voice that I love so much – and on the perfect line too as Holloway in on the Piccadilly Line. Ask H-Rabbit – I love saying, “Now arriving at Piccadilly Circus, on the Piccadilly Line!” H-Rabbit – I’ve got the accent down pat now! As the ride was supremely long, and during the last round of trains for the night – we picked up quite a few people who apparently didn’t really care that they chose to sit on our luggage. London is way too packed with people. Torontonians need to experience this to remember how good we have it – even during rush hour.

Walking, Walking, Walking
I forgot my sister’s love of walking – and I forgot how deep down the Tube stations actually are. To get out at Holloway you need to ride the escalator that resembles the stairway to heaven, it’s that freaking tall. I have no idea what happens when all these escalators break down cause there aren’t any stairs at all.

Fair-weather
Coming from -17 degree Toronto with the wind-chill – London’s 5 degrees is definitely balmy – though you can tell it’s much more damp and dingy here – the cold seeps into your bones and my hair is a permanent frizz ball.


Home Sweet Home – for 10 days
We get to Ica’s place, which is really quite nice. We meet her roommate Alex who is actually packing up to leave the next morning to head back to the States for the Christmas break. We quickly gather round the kitchen eat some of Ica’s peanut-butter chicken noodles (quite good actually despite the name and ingredients) because the plane food was so horrible. She also made some homemade Oreo cookies – those did not turn out as well. We trashed the inside and settled for the outer cookies alone, which were at least edible. Then it was time for bed – though Jessica snuck in some painting too as she had to finish Alex’s going away present before she took off the next morning.

Yay Londontown – can’t wait to get started!!

Europe Day 03: Lazy London Day

Late Start
We definitely took our time today. After realizing just how many hours we were awake for the past two days, we though maybe a good sleep in and a slow start was a really good idea.

Full Breakfast
When Tam came down, it was already lunch, but since that’s no different than our usual schedules at home – we barely noticed. She cooked us an amazingly full breakfast of eggs, mushrooms and bacon. I officially love UK bacon – unlike the stuff we get at home – there’s still meat on these cuts instead of the usual 90% fat. If I could ship some home I would.

Check out our Contiki Future
After breakfast and getting ready, we headed out by Tube again into the city core. Our first stop was Russell Square to check out the Contiki Basement office and get a bearing on where our hotel(s) were. We had to do all our check-ins and meetings at one place, and were staying the next night at another. Tam wouldn’t be with us tomorrow so we wanted to make sure we knew where we were and how to get there so we weren’t lost for our actual tour start.

Camden Market
Once leaving Russell Square, Tam then took us to Camden Market for some shopping and flea market bargains. This was definitely my kind of flea market. They had absolutely everything – and it was a mecca for crafters and artists of every kind. If we had flea markets like this at home (unlike the fairly dirty, sleazy and usually filled with cheaply made “Made in China” plastics markets we tend to be saddled with) I’d be there every weekend.

Leicester Square x2
From there, we went back to Leicester Square to see it more clearly and actually get a good look around since yesterday we were fairly out of it from jet lag, exhaustion an light-headedness. Biggest problem that hit us at this point was it started to pour. I am going to be honest – I do not like London’s rain. It’s cold and damp and gets into your clothes and doesn’t leave. The sun doesn’t dry it, the winds don’t take it away – it just hangs onto everything – and definitely gave way to a pretty grumpy me.

TGI Friday on Sunday
To get out of the pour, we dipped into a place called Tiger Tiger – but then we dipped right back out again. It said it served food but apparently we were too late and they had stopped serving and the waitress then totally ignored us. Apparently the place is a highly touted nightspot but really, with service like that, I don’t think I’d have reason to step in again ever. After that, with the rain still coming down hard, we simply slipped into TGI Friday’s to get out of the rain and eat something decent. Dinner wasn’t bad and it gave us a great chance to catch up and actually have a god chat with Tam. Lots of stories were told and we had a good set of laughs.

Piccadilly Circus
From dinner, Tam then walked us over to Piccadilly Circus, which wasn’t too far at all. The area is basically considered London’s version of Times Square, and is lit up with billboards and lights. In the centre stands a statue led up to by a large set of circular stairs that you can always find many people lazing around. Nowadays apparently they city is actually paying for the stairs to be washed of pigeon poop everyday so they can actually be used by people. Tam says before they weren’t cleaned at all and the place used to be really disgusting. You were lucky to find a clean place to stand let alone sit. I enjoyed being in the circus, if only to chuckle at my childhood visions of Piccadilly being an actual Circus and originally being disappointed a long time ago when I realized it was no such thing.

Tim Horton’s!
Yes – Canada has invaded Piccadilly Circus. Tam’s sole mission for taking us there was to find the supposed Tim Horton’s that set up shop there and found it we did indeed. Problem was, we were thoroughly stuffed from dinner and had no room to even get a back-home coffee – though Tam was pleased that she now knew where it was and could come by anytime for a taste of home.

Covent Garden
After making our find, Tam then took us to Covent Garden. Because it was Sunday, most of the little shops were closed by the time we got there, but there was some strange troupe of highly annoying American gymnasts doing an act in the back square. They basically pushed and begged for money about every 2 minutes during their act. In the middle it also started to pour again so we took this as our cue to leave and did not give the gymnasts any money because, well, in comparison to Cirque acts we can frequently see at home – these girls were just plain bad – and I really didn’t appreciate the constant and consistent pestering. Plus – as Tam said – we didn’t come to London to watch American artists.

Calling it a day
After making our way through the market – we decided it would be a good bet to just make our way home again. It was nice to have a short day that was relaxing. We also got a chance to meet Tam’s roommate who was… who he was. Caught up on a bit more Big Brother and then to sleep we went.