Day 3

Today is the third day of our trip. I am looking out into a dreary cityscape of rooftops and highways. I'm a little hungry and I have a cough drop in my mouth (I haven't kicked the cold yet, lol). So let me give you a recap of the past day-and-a-half. When I left off, we were in the Toronto Airport and our flight had just been delayed, we were just about to move to a different terminal where they were going to bring a plane from the hanger to take us to London. Shortly after that, an announcement was made that we were going to fly on the original plane after all (which made both of us a little bit nervous). New-years came and went without so much as an aknowldgement from the pre-recorded television network in the airport, not a peep from anyone really. I did manage to snag a kiss from Amy at 2 after on our way to board the plane. We spent new-years eve, quite literally, in the Toronto Airport... not as cool as over the Atlantic I assure you. Both planes we were on offered free drinks for the new-year. I'm not sure if they normally offer this or not, but I am sure that Alcoholic drinks typically cost. We did take some time in the airport to explore a natural sound amplification system, which was this huge "room" with two walls folded in around us, we were here when the clock struck 12, local time. It was really cool, we took a few pictures.

Boarding our flight was interesting, when we got on, I saw two airline workers plugged into the plane's network, it looked like they were un-tarring something to do a flash-update or something. I tried to take a picture, but the orange light from our camera made me instantly aware of prying eyes. It would have been funny to know that our "maintenance problems" were mothing more than a problem with the windows-networking system of the airplane. I did get a picture of our personal-entertainmnt-systems which looked like diagnostic mode. We got settled in the plane and we took off around 1:00 a.m. When Amy and I passed by the first-class "modules" we were a little jealous at all the creature comforts $2000 + a ticket can bring. Ahwell, we'll take th $600 ticket and the kid behind you screaming and kicking your seat. Seriously, we had a kid behind us screaming and kicking our seat. Luckily the mother could control him a bit, and managed to cut the screaming and kicking time down to just a couple hours. It reminded us of our Ireland trip, except that trip, the mother didn't do anything about it. I told Amy that she is picking seats next time. The entertainment-system was cool! It was windows-based, but the seats had plug-ins for charging laptops and usb-plug-ins for charging i-pods or other USB devices. I plugged in my USB mouse, and it worked, lol. The movie selection was great, but I only got to watch half of x-files before "dinner" came at 2:00 a.m. Toronto time. It looked like Amy caught a few winks before "dinner," which was a little dissapointing. I ordered the Beef, amy ordered the Chicken. Mine came with beef slices, carrots, potatoes and mushrooms, and some weird red sauce... a mix between bbq and marinara. It also had cold beet squares, a good blue-berry spice-cake, and a chocolate bar. After dinner, we slept, my body couldn't go any longer without sleep. I think we got about three hours before I woke up and they were passing out breakfast, which consisted of peach yogurt, orange juice, and a muffin. We ate a bit of yogurt and saved our muffins and orange-juice.

The arrival at LHR was a bit dissapointing, nothing like the Ireland arrival where the green island appeared out of nowhere. We simply circled around a thick wall of clouds for twenty minutes and descended into a dreary London day. I felt pretty rested, better than Amy I think. We proceeded to the immigration line, where apparantly people think it's "OK" to spit their gum out on the carpet?... Our immigration officer was probably my age, very nice, and passed us in no-time. At this point Amy told me she was shakey and needed food/restroom. But she wanted to get to a "stopping-point" before she stopped. We followed the signs for the underground, it took us a good 10 minutes to get there, walking through underground passages. We arrived to a lot of Chaos and confusion, but I hopped on an automated ticket machine and bought 2 1-6 zone day-passes for 7 pounds a piece. We proceeded to bumble through to get down to the loading deck and our train arrived promptly. Luckily, I jogged to the back a bit so we got a less-crowded car and we both had seats. We had to make a switch at "hammersmith" station, which we did, and then we realized that we were going to be late for our "London Eye" reservation. We weren't too worried about it, we were just happy to be in London.

We arrived at our Hotel and were a bit dissapointed in the location and the fact that we had to wait almost a half-hour for our room, even though it was past check-in time. I will let Amy give you a run-down of the hotel room. One thing I just noticed in the bathroom, before I forget, the drain doesn't drain and the shower isn't very warm. Luckily the bath is super-hot.

So we checked in, got a great room with a view and decided to hit the town. We took the tube to westminster station and arrived at Big-Ben and Parliament. We walked down the Thames, took a few pictures of the London Eye and County Hall and then stopped at Charring Cross for some food. We ate at a place called "Little Italy" for our first meal in Britain, funny huh? It wasn't bad, but wasn't exceptional either. I ordered the Halibut, it came with tons of cheese and a lemon, which was interesting. It was just okay, I liked Amy's lasagna better, which was very "beefy" and good.

After dinner, we were pooped. We realized that our "Walk Along the Thames" was largely unnecessary because food was just a tube-stop away. We returned to our room, waited a while and then reluctantly paid 15 pounds for 24/hrs of internet. The rest is hazy for me, because I fell asleep. Amy may be able to fill you in better.