En Route - Toronto - London - Nairobi

Sunday May 12, 2013

Our flight to London was uneventful and gave us our first taste of a very long leg. Six hours of sitting with your eyes tightly closed pretending you were sleeping while your head lolls around uncomfortably. Landing was a bit bumpy and left a few feeling  a little queasy. We disembarked and snaked our way through Heathrow to meet our guide, Tom, for our London tour. Although it was 11 am London time, our bodies and minds were telling us it was 5 am Winnipeg time. London was lush, green, and sunny to start off. The bus was a tad too comfortable and many of us were nodding off and missing highlights like the Tower Bridge. We then got out to walk around Westminster Abbey (and Big Ben), which perked us up a bit. A further stroll around Buckingham Palace invigorated our flagging energy. Unfortunately, the Queen was not in residence so didn't have us in for a cuppa. We did, however, find some of the palace guards with the big fur hats who obligingly ignored us so we could take the requisite shmaltzy tourist pics. A final stop at "The Old Star," a traditional British pub wrapped up our tour. Food was excellent, whether you opted for the fish 'n chips or something less traditional.
The expected half-hour ride back to the airport soon turned into a 2-hour battle through traffic that seemed to obey no rules of any road. Our Dutch bus driver kept droitly maneuvering through detour after detour, to little avail. He valiantly drove over curbs and had a number of hair-raising near missed with side mirrors, but we still arrived at the airport with very little time. Our flight was already boarding so we ran to get or boarding passes (at the far end of the terminal) and then all the way back to go through security. Unfortunately, a couple of students got caught up in a having their bags inspected. For a short time, we had most of the students and 1 teacher on the plane, and were not certain that the others were going to make it. Big sigh of relief as the rest of our group came bursting through the door seconds before they slammed it closed. The adrenaline rush from the mad dash quickly left us and we mostly managed to grab some sleep on the eight hour flight to Nairobi.
Now we just have to see if our bags made it as well.

Written by - K. Athayde