Jolly Old England (Day 1)

And so begins the tales of my sojourn into the land of lovely-jovlies. After a super-hectic ordeal regarding Marty and his passport expiring, I left for England without knowing if he would be showing up two days later. Thankfully he did, and our respective journeys went off without a hitch.

My preparation involved buying foreign currency for my destinations, which was somewhat thrilling and annoying since the exchange is terrible.



The beginning leg of any overseas jaunt is the arrival at the Vancouver airport and the subsequent pictures to mark the beginning of the adventure ahead.





I was put in a seat over the wing so that meant extra leg room. I was also seated next to a jolly gent from Norway who was a bit of an odd duck, but we got along okay. The trip was a semi-excruciating 9 hours and 45 minutes of which I dozed and ate some grotty airplane food.







The ground became visible once we had reached Northern Ireland and Scotland and I saw the familiar sights of the Scottish highlands. Hello again!




I think this is Belfast.


My first picture of English soil…we were circling to land.


You can almost see the pollution cloud here…


…and here I know for certain you can see it. Yuck! I can almost feel the acid rain coming.

As in my usual fashion, I motored off that plane and nearly broke into a sprint. It is my practice to try to make it out, through customs and bag in hand within 20 minutes of being off the plane. It was a success.



It was not a success, however, finding Lizzy, my pen pal of 15 years whom I had never met previously, amongst the throngs of people gathered. After 15 minutes of wandering aimlessly, panic began to seep in, though I was fairly sure I could find my way to my hostel on my own. Of course, that was all premature and we eventually found each other and met…finally!


Yay! My own sign and everything!

Soon, we were off to the train which whisked us from Heathrow to central London. I checked into my hostel which was to be my (crappy) home for the next two nights and then we decided to get some lunch from a cute little French bakery a few blocks away. I should have been tired, but I was hyped on adrenaline so off we went.






English tea! I don’t drink tea, but when in London, do as the Londoners do. And I did. Even though this place was French.

After our lunch, we headed down to the banks of the Thames and saw some of the most famous London sights..











The reason we came down to the banks was actually not to see these amazing sights; it was on my request to visit Dali Universe – an art gallery dedicated to my favorite artist Salvador Dali (with some Picasso thrown in).









It was really amazing, aside from the pornographic images which I have a hard time agreeing is art. Awkward.

After, we decided to cross the bridge over to the south bank and get a closer look at Big Ben, the parliament buildings, and Westminster Abbey.





Westminster Abbey:












The bobbies at protecting the Parliament buildings (beside the guys with machine guns)

Parliament gargoyles








Human sundial

After more wandering, travel on a bus and a train, we ended up back in downtown in Oxford Circus to scope out the shopping and nightlife of the various districts including (but not limited to) Oxford Circus (our starting point), Picadilly Circus, Leicester Square, and Covent Garden.


Oxford Circus




They were closed. Boo.




Picadilly Circus







We eventually met up with Robin, Lizzy’s boyfriend, in Leicester Square and headed down to a restaurant called Fire & Stone. I ordered an interesting pizza – that I had to cut myself!! Who ever heard of cutting your own pizza?! Apparently this is common practice in London.


Yes, that is hashbrowns with a giant dollop of sour cream.


Robin and Lizzy

What a day. I arrived back at my hostel by 8:45 (to my chagrin all my roommates were already in bed…what?!?) as tomorrow I was to be traveling to Paris. Since the adrenaline was wearing off, I assumed I would conk out as soon as my head hit the pillow. I did, but that didn’t work out as well I had hoped…One day in the bag! As long as I can avoid my crazy 40 year old roommate lady who takes naps in the middle of the afternoon and likes to talk about her cough and basically her life story, I should be alright. However, more hectic-ness lies ahead.