The time finally came. I am now in England sitting in a very small hotel room writing this blog. The internet is very bad, but I'll try my best. Let's start with Day 0.
The day started out with me making a quick trip to the bank to pick up my £ from the bank. I ventured out into the very humid and hot London, Ontario and walked down to my bank and No Frills to pick up some last minute stuff. I got back in plenty of time to rest up before venturing out. Sonia and I left home at 2pm and headed downtown. We stopped by Arby's™for some lunch in the Citi Plaza.
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| Bags packed and ready to go! |
Our next stop was the train station. Upon arriving we learned that the train was about and hour behind due to an earlier incident in Toronto. This made us worry a little bit as our schedule was already pretty tight. Our flight was scheduled for 10:05 and we like to arrive three hours prior to departure. The delayed train didn't arrive in Toronto until five after seven.
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| Hour late train made us a little nervous. |
Next step, the Union-Pearson Express. With trains running every fifteen minutes, we caught the 7:15 departure. The train was comfortable and journey time was 25 minutes to the airport. Arriving at 7:40, we quickly found a kiosk and checked in. Next we waited in line to drop our bags. After the bags were dropped we proceeded to the CATSA screening point and were through in ten minutes.
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| View from the Union Pearson Express. |
We got to the gate (Terminal 3 - C35) and waited for approximately an hour for boarding. The take off was a little rough, to be expected with the storms in the area, and we were airborne at about 10:20pm EST. In enjoyed the view out the window as we passed directly over downtown Toronto and over the lake. With thunderstorms in the area, there was a spectacular display of almost constant nocturnal lighting over the lake. The overall flight was mostly smooth with some moderate turbulence in small pockets.
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| The wing somewhere over the North Atlantic. |
The landing at Gatwick was a little rough as the aircraft had a massive headwind. Once down we proceeded through the long halls of Gatwick to passport control and were in nice and easy. We were through customs at about 11:00am BST. We decided to grab some drinks and hang at the airport for a bit as our hotel check-in wasn't until 2pm. Sonia and I took the 12:52 Southern train to London Victoria; a trip that took about 45 minutes. Our next step was to find bus stop H in the maze that is London Victoria during the multiple construction projects underway. We found it and boarded bus 436 towards Paddington station, which took about fifteen minutes. Sonia and I checked into the hotel and relaxed a bit until heading out again for more supplies for Glastonbury.
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| Our small room. |
I needed a water bottle and Sonia needed a bed sheet for her air mattress. We walked down Edgware road a bit until we found a Tesco Metro. Unfortunately the location only carried food. I used my phone to search for a Tesco Superstore. The closest location was Earl's Court. I next used what I've discovered to be a very useful app: City Mapper. You just type in a destination and it'll give you multiple options and costs on how to get there.
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| An amazing app! |
The best option the app gave us, was to walk down to Marble Arch and catch a route 74 bus towards Putney. We did exactly that and found ourselves at Tesco shopping away. I used the app again to get back to the hotel and it suggested the District line tube from Earl's Court to Paddington. We were at the hotel fifteen minutes later. To get around London, Sonia and I have been using Oyster Cards. They are contactless cards that can be used on Tubes, Trams, Buses, Trains and more in London. The cards are capped at a set daily limit, so you won't use your entire balance in a day. Hope you enjoyed my long and rambling blog, it's 12:35am so I'm heading to bed. I'll try to blog from Worthy Farm daily, but no promises. Internet will likely be spotty.
