Continued from last week.
The train, also known as the Virgin or Cross Country train, left the Edinburgh station at exactly 9:30 am. Our car had room for 40 people but only 15 were aboard. At the front of the car was a group of men about the age of 25 years to 40 years. They were on their way to a wedding. I knew that because the man I assumed to be the groom, was dressed in a blond shoulder length wig, a tight dress over his jeans and high heels.
These men had their own drinks which they respectfully consumed until disembarking at Durham.
At the back of the car was another group of retired men in a similar party mood and they laughed all the way to London. The environment of the train was so relaxed and easy going. We were traveling 2nd class for it was cheaper than 1st class and was less business-like.
Train travel has much less stress than air travel. When you consider the time it takes to go to the airport, go through security, wait for the aircraft to board, fly to your destination, wait for your baggage, and take a taxi to your destination, rail travel just makes more sense. The nice thing too is that the train drops you off in the centre of town.
The trip to London took 4 hours and I slept part of the way. I might mention that unlike Canadian rail travel, there is no clickety clack as the car goes over the rails, for all the rails are welded together which makes for quiet travel.
Our London destination was Kings Cross Rail/Underground station. There was a food store in the station waiting area where we bought fresh fruit for snacks.
We then used our Oyster passes to pay for the trip on the Victoria underground line which took us to the Victoria station. There we caught the Gatwick Express train using our Brit Rail Passes. It was all very easy once you knew what you were doing.
The Gatwick Express took us to the the Gatwick South Terminal where we took the free tram to the North Terminal. Upon exiting the North Terminal, our hotel was a five minute walk from the doors of the Terminal.
Gatwick is very busy and we almost got run over by a tour bus while crossing the street at a corner. We discovered the secret is to stick your arm out horizontally indicating that you aren’t just planning to stand on the corner. Officially, pedestrians have the right of way, but in practice that doesn’t seem to be the way.
We checked in to our hotel and for an extra charge we got the “meal deal”, which meant breakfast and supper for 24.99 GBP each. Supper was a 2 course meal including wine or beer, and breakfast was a buffet.
The British breakfast usually included sliced fresh fruit, yogurt, dry cereals, porridge, scrambled eggs, black pudding, back bacon, sunny side eggs, brown beans in sauce, sausages, toast, deep fried McDonald style hash-browns, coffee or espresso, tea, fruit juices, and a curious dish called bubbles and squeak. That was made of grill fried potatoes and diced leek greens, it was good tasting.
Our hotel called the Premier Hotel, guaranteed a good nights sleep and that we had! We arose at 7 am and enjoyed a delicious breakfast.
Our flight was leaving at 10 am. We had booked it with Easy Jet but had failed to designate the number of bags we would be placing in the cargo hold. We were unable to pre-book our boarding passes, we could have specified our bag number then and spared some expense.
However, we showed up at the Easy Jet check in counter and they charged us 50 GBP for our single bag and then charged us another 40 GBP for being over weight. Our cheap Easy Jet flight now became an expensive Easy Jet flight. Lesson well learned.
The way most people flew with Easy Jet was to take carry on bags for there was plenty of overhead storage. There were even two sizes of storage bins. It makes me wonder if that is the airlines way of eliminating baggage handling.
I’m going to end this dialogue here and continue the rest of it next week.
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