Off to London


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Published: July 3rd 2009
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We got up a bit earlier this morning, and after breakfast at the hotel, walked our luggage through the streets the short distance to the train station. We arrived with lots of time to spare before our 10:30 train, and bought food for lunch at the Marks and Spencer's as well as checking out the book stores.

The train platform was quite crowded, and at the last minute we found out we needed to be at the other end of the platform for our car. When we finally reached our car, there was hardly any room for luggage as the luggage rack was already full. So far the British trains are not looking too good.

Aboard the train, we were eventually able to find place for our luggage. The train is supposed to have free wifi, but with so many people using the connection, the speed was too slow to get much done beyond just checking our emails. Benjamin did some school work while Joshua played on his Nintendo DS.

The trians here are not nearly as smooth nor as fast as the European ones, though it did seem to move along at a fair clip. The motion back and forth was so much that is was difficult to do any work and a small boy ahead of us suffered from motion sickness. All in all, the experience isn't as good as French, Swiss, or Italian trains.

The first part of the trip we were traveling by the ocean and through a thick fog. Most of the rest of the trip was past flat farmland. By 12:15 we were in Newcaste and by 1:15 we were in the city of York.

Shortly after 3 pm, we pulled into London Kings Cross Station. Though it was still early in the afternoon, it was already beginning to feel a bit like rush hour so I was a bit antsy that we get on going. Unfortunately there was a huge line up at the tube ticket office, which took some time to get through. In the end, we were able to get onto a not too packed train which takes about 45 minutes to get to Heathrow. It was a bit sad to be passing through all the too familiar stations, knowing that we are leaving tomorrow.

Heathrow airport is quite modern and wasn't too hard to navigate. We soon found the “Hoppa” bus stop and figured out which bus would take us to our hotel.

As with many airport hotels, the Crowne Plaza is sort of in the middle of nowhere, with no shops or restaurants nearby. I picked it for our final night here because it has a pool which I knew Joshua would like.

The hotel was quite nice, and has a small souvenir shop, a restaurant, and a bar. Joshua was keen to try out the pool, so he and I headed off to the health cub. We had fun alternating between the steambath, the sauna, the cold pool, the hot tub, and the swimming pool. I tried to remind him of the bath complex that we had seen in Pompei, but I don't think he really saw the connection.

Back in our room, we looked at the hotel restaurant prices and discovered that other than the kids meals, the prices are through the roof. A burger cost nearly $25. As there was nothing else around though, we bit the bullet and heading over to the bar where they also serve food.

For such a upscale place, the service at the bar was horrible and we waited forever first to order and then to get our food. They tack the tip onto the bill, so I guess there is not much motivation for the servers to care about how long people wait.

Back at the room, we weighed our luggage and after moving a few things around, were set for tomorrow's flight. I took a trip down to the hotel computers and was able to print out our e-tickets along with the info for our Iceland apartment. We have decided to sleep in tomorrow and then take the shuttle to the airport, having breakfast there.



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