My mom and I had a flight out of Toronto Airport for 11:55pm, so we arrived at the airport for 9pm. We had to wait in a pretty big line up for Air Transat because there were about 7 other flights going out that night, ours being the last one. Originally we lined up in the wrong line and then my mom went to go ask where our line was because we saw one moving and ours wasn’t. We finally made it through security and we were waiting by our gate for 11pm. We boarded our flight shortly after midnight but we didn’t take off till close to 12:30pm.
Around 1:40am we were served a hot meal. Our options were chicken, beef or pasta. I picked the pasta and my mom chose chicken. We ended up switching because hers was chicken and rice and mine looked nasty. I eventually ended up falling asleep, but woke up periodically. I blame the lady in the seat in front of me. She kept her window blind up the entire flight so the sun would shine in my face every so often. At 5:40am Toronto Time we were served breakfast. It was nasty. I received a yogurt, frozen orange juice and a hard bun to eat. Shortly after that we started our descent into Heathrow Airport. We had to circle a few times in order to wait for the runway to be clear but by 7:30am Toronto Time or 12:30 pm Europe Time we were de-boarding the plane.
We ended up having to wait for a van that was to pick us up and take us to our hotel. Our Hotel was called Thistle Marble Arch and it was located on the opposite side of Oxford Street. The drive its self took longer then it should have due to traffic, but It was a nice drive I thought. There was a lady whom was going to a different hotel and she kept complaining about how long the drive was taking. I was glad when we arrived to drop her off at her hotel.
After we checked into our hotel my mom and I decided to walk along Oxford Street and see what was around us. We ended up having Mcdonald’s for dinner and then we found the Marble Arch Underground/Tube Station.
- History Lesson – Marble Arch is a white Carrara-marble monument at the junction of Oxford Street, Park Lane, and Edgware Road, almost directly opposite Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park in London, England. The arch is on a large traffic island, which also includes a very small park, in the midst of traffic. The traffic island is directly across from the Marble Arch underground/tube station. It was originally erected on The Mall as a gateway to the new Buckingham Palace. A popular story says that the arch was moved because it was too narrow for the Queen’s state coach to pass through, but, that’s not the case. The gold state coach passed under it during Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953.
At 7pm we had our welcome meeting at the hotel. We met the other individuals that had booked the same tour as us and everything was explained such as how we would be getting to Paris, France and optional excursions we could participate in while in London. We opted out of the excursions because we already had a plan for what we wanted to see and do.
That evening we decided to just take it easy. We ended up staying in the hotel and unpacked, and I decided I wanted to have a shower. This resulted in 6 calls to housekeeping and the front desk because we had difficulty trying to shut off the shower. I meant to get a photo of the shower but I forgot, so I’ll do my best to describe it. The shower has two knobs and basically the first one is a large knob that works turning the shower on and off. The second knob is in front of the first knob and that controls the temperature of the water. We figured all this out once housekeeping finally came up to turn off the shower. Basically we couldn’t figure out which way to turn the knob. While housekeeping was doing it, it was explained that the large knob is turned counter clockwise to turn the shower on and clockwise to turn it off. Only thing, is that the knob is rather difficult to turn. Hence why we had an issue with it. Once we finally got the shower deal figured out I went to bed.
Tomorrow was going to be the start of several busy days and it was already after midnight and we had a 6am wake up call.