Toronto to Melbourne: Day One: London

And we're off!

After a weekend of tearful goodbyes with friends and family, it was almost a relief when the time came to board our plane on Monday evening. Dave and I have been talking about leaving for so long, it felt good to finally take action after so much time spent planning and packing and saying goodbye.

Our flight departed Toronto a little after 7:00 pm (local time) and connected via Glasgow to London-Gatwick 6.5 hours later. When we arrived in Glasgow (sleep deprived but excited none-the-less!) Dave took once glance at the European Isles as our plane descended through the thick cloud cover and declared: "I think Scotland is my country!"

His reasons were as follows: (1) Everyone is pale. (2) It's not very sunny. (3) There are lots of gingers. He has since admitted that he might have been suffering from sleep exhausted, and was more enamored by the Scottish family sitting to our right on the place (particularly their awesome accents), and was not in the best state of mind to make big sweeping judgements about entire countries. Nonetheless, there it is.

After a quick breakfast in the Glasgow airport (porridge and eggs) we continued on our way to London, and touched down a little after 11:00 am (local time). In the least surprising chain of events ever, although we arrived in London safe and sound, our luggage did not. However, both Dave and I were too exhausted to argue with the British Airways attendant when he assured us our bags would "come down on the next flight and be delivered to the hotel today." It's now almost midnight and they have still yet to show. As a victim of lost luggage in the past, I'm skeptical about their claimed-promptness when it comes to this process. But, thankfully, we took this setback in stride.

And so, exhausted, lacking luggage, and forced to cram into a packed Southern train bound for Victoria Station, we made our way from Gatwick airport in search of our hotel (and a shower and a nap!). Here's a photo of Dave, enjoying his very first experience on a European high-speed train earlier today:

The good news upon arriving at our hotel was that our room was ready! So, we made a quick stop at Sainsbury across the street for missing supplies (i.e. toothpaste) and snacks (i.e. all the interesting chip flavours Dave could dream of trying), unpacked our meager possessions in our room, took a shower and then gave into the exhaustion and napped.

We woke up around dinnertime, clearheaded, starving, and eager to explore! Here are some photos from the rest of the day: