{"id":7964,"date":"2011-06-24T14:00:38","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T18:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sunflowerit.ca\/travel\/auto-draft\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T11:22:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T15:22:33","slug":"uk-meet-up-for-a-first-family-europe-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunflowerit.ca\/travel\/other-trips\/trips-europe\/europe2011\/uk-meet-up-for-a-first-family-europe-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"UK: meet-up for a first family Europe travel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2011.06.20\/21 \u2013 Ottawa \u2013 Sheffield (UK)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent most of Monday finishing to pack my travel bag. Jenny went to work for half a day. Victoria was attending her last school day of her last year at the same elementary school she had been attending since prekindergarten. She was very disappointed that our family vacation started before her 6th<\/sup> grade class graduation. Jenny came back home in time for both of us to pick up Victoria at school. The short farewell between friends was very emotional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back home, our friend, Gang, showed up at our doorstep promptly at 3:30pm – just as promised. The traffic was light for our drive to the airport. We thanked Gang and carried our few travel bags into the airport. We noted that we had much fewer bags this time than our last visit to China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flight with Thomas Cook left and arrived on-time. Everything went well but their on-board entertainment system was clearly not as elaborate as the one from Air Continental. Snacks and headphones were being sold to passengers \u2013 no freebie here!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon our arrival at London’s Gatwick airport, we queued at immigration for 30 minutes. The immigration officer was a bit inquisitive about our Sheffield destination. We expected our baggage to be already on the carousel after immigration but unfortunately this was not the case. The luggage belt had apparently broken and had to be fixed. We waited another 30 minutes before leaving the airport on the train. Using our Brit Rail pass for the fist time, we made our way to the St Pancras International train station. At the station, Jenny purchased a SIM card for her new Iphone4. Jenny called Jessica along the train ride to Sheffield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessica greeted us at the train station. We took the taxi to her flat and started to explore the town that she spent the last few years in studying of her law degree. We had Pad Thai at a local restaurant after which we walked around the neighborhood and the university campus. Back at the flat, we had a few hours of sleep to recover a bit from our long journey from Ottawa. We met a few of Jessica’s friends before heading out for an evening meal to celebrate Jessica’s last minute news about a job offer she received from a law firm. Jessica was totally ecstatic about her job offer as she finally started to see the hard work paying off (with a bit of luck!). Exhausted from the day’s travel and events, we were all happy to hit the beds.<\/p>\n\n\n