Day 1 - London to Toronto

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So our travels and our travel blog finally get underway. It's been a long time in the planning and is a little surreal now that we're actually getting around to it. It has suddenly crept up on us as our attention has been distracted recently by minor matters like moving house and getting married.

We'll start off with the intention of keeping a reasonably detailed log of our year away, but no doubt this will change. Day 1 sees a moderately tearful 'Goodbye' to parents at our hotel in London and then a train journey to Manchester. A stuttering start to 6 days of train travel with predictable delays. Anyway we get to Manchester Airport (our budget airline flies 6 days a week from London and once a week - annoyingly on Mondays - from Manchester) and then a few hours later are in Toronto, one of the best cities around. This opinion could change over the next year of course, but we've both been here before and loved it. And the CN Tower is definitely still growing.

Gemma's friend from last year's work visit to Canada, Amanda, meets us at the airport in an enormous truck. Gemma has added one of these to her birthday list when we get back. Spent a lovely evening catching up with her and visiting old haunts - the clear highlight being Riley's, Ed's local when in town (Ben - we even played pool for old time's sake. No Canadian on tap though...). Thanks for dinner Amanda, it was great to see you again.

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