Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - Arrive in London

The flight was alright, although I only got about 3 hours of sleep before they turned on the lights and started serving breakfast. Both the dinner and the breakfast were really good. I had the beef pesto ravioli for dinner and the apple pancakes for breakfast - delicious! We would have arrived in Heathrow Airport at about 10:10 A.M., but due to on-ground delays we had to circle in the air for about 45 minutes. We landed at about 11:00 A.M.I was seated relatively close to the front of the plane, so I got off quickly and got through immigration before the rush. I suppose Contiki is well known over here because when I said that I was going on a tour of Europe, the immigration officer asked if it was through Contiki. I said yes, he stamped my passport, and I was through, Then on to the baggage claim. I don't know it is was the jet lag and lack of sleep, who know, but I watched my bags go around the turnstile twice before realizing that 'no, someone doesn't have the same bag as me' and 'yes, that is indeed my bag.' I got a quick 200 pounds at the ATM and was off. Customs was basically nonexistant. I walked through a door that said 'Nothing to Declare' and headed to the famous London Underground Tube.

There was only one train that picks up at Heathrow Airport, called the Piccadilly Line. It fortunetly goes straight to Russel Square, where my hotel is. While on the train though we kept hearing on the speaker that a portion of the Piccadilly Line was closed for maintenance - so I started trying to organize an alternate plane (taking the Picadilly Line to the Hammersmith Station then the Hammersmith Line to the King's Cross Station to the Picadilly Line to Russel Square was my second best bet). But just as we nearned the closed area the driver announced that the entire line had opened up and I could make it to Russel Square. So I got off at my stop along with, what felt like, a million other people. We had to wait for the elevator because it is 175 stairs straight up to the ground level. Once at the street level, I turned left, walked one block and I was at the hotel and the Contiki Basement (basically the Contiki London headquarters). I had to wait until 2:00 P.M. to check-in at the Contiki Basement (it was 1:10 P.M. whe I arrived). At 2:00 P.M., I checked-in, got my sleeping bag, and headed to the concierge at the hotel to get my room key. The hotel has 1140 rooms - it took up an entire city block and was several stories tall. I dropped off my bags and headed back to the tube to visit the London Eye.

I should have bought an oyster card or travel card at Heathrow (this gives your unlimited trips on the tube for the whole day), but I had only bought a one time pass. So when I went out this time, I made sure to buy the all-day pass. I took the Piccadilly Line to the South Kensington Station and then switched to the District Line to the Westminster Station. I walked across the Westminster Bridge, past Big Ben, to the London Eye. I caught the flight (I had already purchased my ticket while I was back in the USA) and could see all of London. After, I hurried back to the station as it had started to rain. Once back at the hotel I met my first roommate, Fabiana, a computer engineer from Brazil. She only spoke very limited English, but we chatted about our upcoming trips - she was taking the 14-day Contiki tour called European Highlights.




We went down to the pretour meeting at the Contiki Basement at 7:00 P.M. At the meeting we went over the basics of the tour and met our driver, Jon, and tour manager, Josh. After the meeting, Aya (Japan) and I went to a grocery store to buy breakfast for the morning and then found a little italian restaurant for dinner.

We headed back to the hotel and I was asleep by 10:00 P.M.