The day that Eva’s travel benefits kicked in and she gained access to the employee travel website, we immediately started planning our first trip. We settled on London as the best option for our first non-rev trip: a direct flight from YVR (meaning no connections to worry about), lots of open seats in both directions, and daily direct flights from LHR to eight Canadian cities (meaning we didn’t have to worry about figuring out backup plans on other airlines).

So we listed ourselves on the flight, packed our carry on, and got a full day of work in before meeting up at the airport for some dinner before our flight (the first of many Friday night dates at YVR!).

The gate agent assigned us both aisle seats – which I was a little confused about and concerned we wouldn’t be sitting together, despite the flight only being half-full. It all made sense after boarding though: he’d assigned us aisle seats on each end of the bank of three in the centre of the 77W. So with no one in the middle seat, we had the row to ourselves 🙂

This was to be the first of many long transatlantic and transpacific flights we’d take over the next few months and was the start of a bit of a routine for me: spend the first couple of hours catching up on email and clearing my inbox, watch a movie, then sleep until breakfast just before arriving at our destination.

Arriving at LHR, I was quite surprised to see so many Air Canada aircraft. There really are a lot of flights from all across Canada to LHR – and it was quite funny to see a cute little A319 (the daily St John’s flight) in between all the 777’s and A330’s!

We took the Heathrow Express train to Paddington Station (efficient, but expensive), then the Tube to Charring Cross and a short walk to our hotel next to Trafalgar Square.

A sunny day in London

We were a little tired, but just dropped our bags, had a shower, and went out to explore the city. It was a bit chilly but fantastically sunny. Neither of us brought sun glasses (who thinks to bring sunglasses to London in October??).

I hadn’t yet discovered the incredibly useful City Maps 2Go app for iPhone and so I looked up Google maps in our hotel room and scribbled down a home made map on a piece of paper. Thankfully I have a pretty good sense of direction and it all worked out 🙂

We wandered around and hit up some of the typical sights:

• Trafalgar Square
• Buckingham Palace
• Big Ben and Parliament
• Horse Guards Parade
• Downing Street
• The Banqueting House (where I almost fell asleep while watching a video on the history — yes, not quite used to red-eye flights yet)

Fish and Chips in London

We also had our first meal in London – a very typical fish and chips 🙂

We went back to the hotel for a short nap before going out to enjoy Saturday night in SoHo. It was incredibly sureal to realize we were in London on Saturday night and would be back in work on Monday!

On Sunday, we took a train from Waterloo Station out to Kingston upon Thames and a short bus ride to Hampton Court Palace (home of King Henry VIII).

Kitchen at Hampton Court Palace

This was probable the best palace exhibition I’d been to as it really gave you a sense of what life was like there. The girl walking purposefully by in the hallway in costume and said “Good day to you, sir!” freaked me out a little bit! They definitely did a good job making it all quite authentic.

Hampton Court Gardens

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the town of Kingston on a bustling Sunday afternoon and had another traditional pub meal at the Druids Head before catching the train back to London.

Our second and final night in London was spent wandering around, taking a ferry ride on the Thames, walking over Tower Bridge, and finally having a late dinner and drink people watching overlooking Leicester Square. It’s incredible how busy a Sunday night in London is!

Up early Monday morning and going our separate ways at LHR: Eva on a

Dinner and people watching over Leicester Square

direct flight to Halifax for work, and me on my longest Monday morning commute ever on a direct flight to Vancouver.

I was in the office by noon, got a productive day in and a late dinner with a client. With such a short trip, jet lag didn’t seem to be a factor at all.