{"id":8222,"date":"2019-11-17T08:28:24","date_gmt":"2019-11-17T13:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sunflowerit.ca\/travel\/auto-draft\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T15:09:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T19:09:46","slug":"a-stop-in-london-before-some-french-fries-and-bicycle-experiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunflowerit.ca\/travel\/other-trips\/trips-europe\/europe-2013\/a-stop-in-london-before-some-french-fries-and-bicycle-experiences\/","title":{"rendered":"A stop in London before some french fries and bicycle experiences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2013.07.16\/17 \u2013 Ottawa \u2013 London (UK)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprisingly our bags were easily prepared over the past weekend. We had no last minute purchases or packing challenges.- possibly a sign that we had a bit of travelling experience under our belt. Victoria had already started her school summer break a few weeks ago. She had begun purging her previous school years notes. As I had booked Tuesday off, I made some errands mostly for my Aunt estate handling. By 2:15pm, I picked up Jenny at work. She felt like a child at daycare waiting for her parents to pick her up. At home, we prepared for supper with our friend, Gang, who would be driving us to airport and keeping an eye on our house. Although our flight was only at 9:00pm, we showed up quite early which made Jenny more comfortable. Our Air Transat aircraft to London appeared much nicer than our 2011 flight with Thomas Cook. Nonetheless, Jenny still found the seating space smallish. I managed to sleep a fair amount as the six hour flight appeared to go by fairly quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon our arrival at London’s Gatwick airport, the queue at immigration was shorter for non EU passengers. We waited longer for our final luggage to arrive on the carousel. At the international exit, Jessica greeted us as promised. With our local London girl in tow, we quickly purchased our trains tickets. We got off at the station closest to Jessica’s and Jack’s flat. Jessica gave us a grand tour of their flat and offered us a light lunch of pasta salad , cheese and beer. After lunch, Victoria and I dozed off a bit while Jenny and Jessica chatted. Later, we walked back to the train station and bought our Oyster cards for the Tube and train commutes. We took the taxi to our hotel after which I stayed in our room while the girls went out for some clothes shopping. Later, we went to meet Jack in the downtown area for our evening meal. It was nice get together but the fatigue started to get to us all. We bid farewell to Jack and Jessica at our hotel room. We all fell asleep quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n