Europe 2007: Day 1 (and a half - Raleigh/London)

We started the day with breakfast, finished our packing and got the house in order. We said goodbye to Tasha and Ripley around 4:30pm and took a cab to RDU airport for a 7pm departure to London's Gatwick Airport.

Last time we flew to London, we connected in Charlotte for a USAir flight. Flying direct from Raleigh on American Airlines was a much nicer experience all-around. No connections means less time, less concerns about checked bags reaching their destination, and no fear of missing flights. The flight was nearly empty so we were able to claim an entire aisle of five seats. The food was ok - I had chicken with rice & mushroom sauce while Mike opted for beef with spicy pepper sauce & mashed potatoes. I slept around 4 hours and Mike slept around 3 hours. In-flight entertainment options weren't great but they did have a cool trip computer that let you track our route, altitude, distance from destination, etc. We woke around 6am (over Shannon, IE) for coffee and a croissant before landing in London at 7:06am and going through customs and immigration (quick and no hassle).

We boarded the Gatwick Express for a 30-minute trip into Victoria Station and then switched to the Tube to reach our hotel at Gloucester Road. Our room for the night was at the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum. Mike used Priceline so we only spent around $80. Unfortunately, the room was very tiny and also a smoking room. I'm glad we only stayed there one night.

I was quite sick when we first arrived and we lost most of the day because of it. We tried to go to the Cabinet War Rooms but it was too late when we arrived. We did make it out to the House of Parliament. They were debating about digital broadcasting in the House of Commons which was kind of interesting. It had to do with availability of records for vision-impaired people in relation to switching broadcast tv to digital. We only stayed at the House of Lords for a few minutes - they were a very sleepy crowd.

Afterwards, we went to Trafalgar Square to find an internet cafe and a bite to eat. Mike bought an unlocked cellphone to use with an 800-number service and we had a lot of trouble getting it set up correctly online. Eventually their tech support called us back and it worked fine for the rest of the trip. Dinner was pretty gross - we had really bland sandwiches but that's about all my stomach would handle at that point.

We went back to the room to do some planning for our trip to Dublin and fell asleep around 10pm.

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