YYZ to LGW

It was an uneventful journey, but a happy one. Brother dearest drove Mom and me to the airport - the adventure began. Flight was good - great service with Air Transat, the flight attendants were superbly wonderful and good looking so I was satisfied. The food so-so. In flight movies were "Marley and Me" and "Twilight" which I found quite amusing. Listened to Mastodon most of the way and then read the crappy girly magazines I bought while waiting to board earlier.

Got absolutely no sleep on the flight and was surprised by the fact that this is the second time I've flown to Europe where there was a seat between me and the next person that was unoccupied.

Arrived at Gatwick early - this airport has pretty bad signage. Made my way through customs and then picked up my teeny tiny bag that I fit my life into for a month and headed out. Found the train station and grabbed my prepaid ticket to Cambridge from a self service kiosk and was on my way. Bumped into a girl who was from U of T who was going to downtown London so we chatted a bit and took the train in together, there were two stops on the way. First was Croydon - home of Nestle UK. Next was Clapham Junction - in between the two stops, closer to Clapham I noticed that closer to the residential areas there was a whole section of abandoned soccer balls that had been lost over the fences that kept people off the train tracks. It made me smile. As the train made its way towards London I couldn't help but get excited, I could see the London Eye and the Gherkin building (thank you Sir Norman Foster). The London Underground was pretty intuitive and I had some help from some nice attendants on figuring out how that worked. Got on and made my way over to King's Cross and I hate to disappoint you Karen but I was in a hurry and couldn't get a picture of where platform 9 3/4 would be. Although I boarded my train at platform 9B - there's construction going on there. The livestock, more than anything, is making me excited. Yesterday there were cows in a field, just wandering around! It was great!

Of course Johan took me on an impromptu tour of Cambridge - it was fascinating. We went and got sandwiches at this incredibly clean place and then wandered around a bit - I demanded to know whether the UK had kleenex. We then had tea and scones - well Johan had tea - I had mineral water at a tea house, and then we wandered around some more. We snuck into some colleges and they're gorgeous. I don't think I displayed the amazement properly, mostly because I was tired and sick but somehow still going. I think I feel less of a tourist here possibly because everybody speaks English. Eventually we got back to the flat/dorm and I took a much needed shower and got less stinky. Then we hung out a bit and watched TV on the laptop and Johan got hungry again - my appetite is somewhat suppressed but it was the right idea to go out and eat. Had dinner at a place I think was called Dojo, asian fusion, so much food we both couldn't eat it all - we had underestimated the size of our dinner stomachs. Tried Asahi for the first time and it was quite delicious although I don't agree that it tastes too different from regular beer.

Wonder what the next few days will bring.