Hello London! London, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom

This last morning in Mykonos started with a good laugh.  I probably shouldn’t but when I saw some of our fellow travellers looking very much the worse for wear after a huge night out, I couldn’t help but have a laugh at the shambling, wincing messes that presented themselves at breakfast. What a perfect day to have to pack and then take two flights…  anyway it’s always fun to watch when you’re the chipper one. Somehow again even though we’ve only bought some very small and meagre souvenirs its a real struggle to pack everything in the suitcase but we both managed it.  Thankfully, and something for which I shall be forever grateful, someone came to collect the cases and carry up the three or four flights of stairs  to get them to reception.  Brilliant.  Then all of a sudden it was time to leave all the beautiful island life behind and to the ugly island life, also known as Mykonos airport. What can I say, it’s a dump, and a bit of chaotic one at that.  But we didn’t have to hang around there too long before we had to take a little bus ride across the tarmac to the plane, and walk up the stairs, just like they did in the good old days.  

The flight to Zurich was great – again it was ‘pretend business class’ – where business class just means there’s nobody in the middle seat, but boy did we get fed!  It felt like they were bringing out more food every ten minutes – beautiful swiss chocolates, little cakes, all sorts of good stuff.   The second flight was delayed, but thank goodness it was Zurich airport at which we had to spend out extra time, and not Mykonos.   We eventually boarded nearly an hour late, and were on our way.  Zurich to London is a short trip – about the same as Sydney to Melbourne, except it involves flying over a bunch of countries.  One other cute touch was all the in flight announcements that started with “Dear Ladies, Gentlemen, and Dear Kids”. All was well at Heathrow – didn’t take too long to get through immigration/customs/whatever, but since we were late it took us a while to find our driver that was taking us to the hotel – I think he’d given up, but we tracked him down, and then we were on our way.

It was funny – a few of us said that once we left the airport terminal it was quite reminiscent of Sydney airport for some reason.  Then the drive in felt very similar to the drive from Tullamarine to Melbourne.  But as we drew in closer to our hotel, it became very much London.  Especially when we drove straight past The Ritz, Harrods and Harvey Nicks.

We checked in to the hotel – now in line with all expectations, it is indeed a shoebox.  But to be honest, it’s actually bit larger than I was expecting.  Having said that the double bed is walled in on three sides, so the room is about 2 metres by 6 metres, thereabouts.  It’s 12 metres squared, anyway.  So, kinda like a caravan.  But fortunately we have some windows (unlike some of the other rooms!) so it’s not as claustrophobic as it might be.  Let’s see if we still feel the same way in a week though. As soon as checking in we went out for a quick wander – surrounded by pubs and restaurants, which has gotta be good.  We walked into The Spice of Life pub  which was almost on our doorstep, and had excellent food.  So within minutes of arriving at London we already ticked off ‘Pub!’ from the tourist list.  Didn’t exactly feel like an episode of EastEnders but hey not too far off 🙂 We had a very brief walk around as it was already getting a bit late after a long day – due to the change in time zones today is 26 hour long… so definitely tie to wrap this up, get to bed, and get ready to hit the town tomorrow.  Hello London!