London to San Francisco - part 2

We had a night in London before our flight the next morning, and spent it catching up with a couple of Tasha's friends over drinks and some outrageously good Vietnamese food. We'd very sensibly planned to get an early night, but somehow didn't get to sleep until a bit after 2am, which made waking up at 7am a bit of an ordeal.

And so began a long day of travelling...
We caught a couple of trains across the city to Heathrow, checked into our Virgin Atlantic flight - where the lady on the check-in desk was satisfyingly impressed as the details of our travel itinerary flashed up on her screen - and eventually boarded our plane, which turned out to be one of the swanky double-decker ones with a funky bar in it and everything. I was so impressed that I was pretty much able to ignore my usual fear of flying for about 98% of the flight, which bodes well for the rest of the trip as we've got about 14 flights to take in total.

11 hours, 3 movies, a gin and tonic, and about a gallon of mineral water later, we touched down in the USA.

US customs took ages to pass through, but we managed to avoid any cavity searches, and before we knew it we were through the arrivals lounge getting picked up by Tasha's cousin Addy.

We were sweaty and exhausted, but still more than ready for some great Japanese food with Addy, her flatmate Ryuta and their friend Jessica, followed up by a truly spectacular view of the city, the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, Alcatraz, Oakland and the most of the Bay Area from the top of Twin Peaks, high above town.

The moon was full, the sky was clear, and there wasn't a trace of 'Frisco's famous fog. It was breathtaking, and a little surreal for our frazzled brains to take in, but an incredible introduction to a city I've always wanted to visit.

London to San Francisco - part 1

We had 5 minutes to catch our train to London, and the fact that we were 6 minutes from the station and stuck behind a tractor hadn't gone entirely unnoticed in the car. There was what you could describe as a bit of an atmosphere; a subtle whiff of tension in the air...

"Aaaargh! Mum - we're not gonna make it! This sucks! I HATE stupid tractors! Gah... What's the point?" I whimpered manfully.

"It's not like it's the end of the world honey - we can just catch the next train to London. They run every half an hour; it's not a big deal..."

My quiet sobbing drowned out Tasha's reassurances.

Mum stayed silent, a steely glint in her eye. The tractor turned off. Mum floored it.

.....................

We drew up at the station at the same time as the train and put our hastily devised plan into action. Tasha dived out of the car and started sprinting towards the self-service ticket machine, whilst Mum raced the car to the London-bound platform and the train let out a whistle to announce its arrival. I leapt out, grabbing all of our bags, and ran to an open carriage door.

Meanwhile, on the opposite platform, Tasha was stuck behind a slow old lady who couldn't figure out the ticket machine. I pleaded with the guard to hold the train for us, my mum shrieked across the tracks for Tasha to hurry up, and a train full of people trying to get to London quietly gave all three of us evil looks out of the windows.

And so it was that our six month, once in a lifetime around the world trip got underway. Exhausted, sweaty and stressed before we even left Totnes, we blew kisses to my mum out the window and collapsed into our seats.

We were finally off.