Day 1 - Getting there and some early mishaps

Europe in the springtime was a winner last year, and despite the world seeming rather scary to travel in, we decided to book a trip to London for April of this year.   We thought we'd book before gas prices started affecting flight prices - which started happening about a week before we left.  We booked through Expedia like we usually do and managed to snag four different airlines for a Ottawa-Toronto-London, London-Toronto-Ottawa trip (Porter, Air Transat, Virgin Atlantic and WestJet) - of them, Virgin Atlantic was the best in terms of flight experience.  Thankfully there were no travel delays, but our flights left later in the afternoon putting us on the ground in London around noon on Wednesday (local time) after having left home around 4pm the day before.  Neither of us slept on the plane other than maybe 15 minute power naps but we weren't in too rough of shape once we got there.  I had some freebie airport lounge passes so we got to start the trip with some food and drinks in the Ottawa airport while we waited for our plane.

We landed a little late at Gatwick airport and headed for the trains to London downtown.  I'm typically the navigator of the team while Carrie is the security lookout for pickpockets and scammers but I didn't do enough homework into which train station in London we were supposed to go to.  We bought tickets for London Victoria on ThamesLink and got on either a a Southern Railway train or a Thameslink - we were a little overwhelmed at the number of different options to get into London from Gatwick and there was a London transit strike going on so there were cancellations all over the place.  We managed to navigate to the underground station that was reasonably close to our hotel - but the Central line was closed due to the strike so we had to walk a bit further down Oxford street to our hotel.  We must have bought the wrong train tickets or did something wrong as we couldn't get out without help from the transit staff at the train station.  So this was mishap 1 - minor inconvenience and confusion but unnerving way to start things out.

We got to our hotel and checked in and I realized I forgot the mask for my CPAP machine which is essential for me to have a good sleep - mishap 2.  We figured we are in London, there must be places you can buy this stuff - but finding one was a lot harder than we thought.  After a terrifying Bolt ride (Uber equivalent) in some busy traffic we wandered around west London and eventually found a place that sold ones and had them in stock (and weren't closed due to the tube strike).  After misphap 3 - which was navigating to the wrong Radisson Blu on Totenham Court road and walking while exhausted for 20 minutes in the wrong direction, we eventually made it back to the hotel for a nap and then went out for some yummy fish and chips at Fishoria, a restaurant close to the hotel.  That was a nice experience on the outdoor patio and our first introduction to the more expensive food prices compared to here.

Mishap 4 was while finally winding down for the night at about 9:30 I went to plug in all my devices and I blew the circuit breaker for the room.  We called the front desk and they sent someone up to flip the breaker but one of the circuits in the room was still not working - and it was the one for plugging my CPAP machine and recharging all power banks and devices.  The hotel staff tried to tell me it was my plug converter but I proved that it worked in another working receptacle in the room.  We asked for a room change as I needed this power outlet but they said the hotel was full - and after a bit of getting irate (there was no WiFi in the hotel either at this point) they provided a power bar which thankfully I was able to get everything to run off and reach the nightstand beside my bed.

It wasn't a terrible day but it didn't feel like a good start to the trip.  We got a good sleep though and hoped for a better day tomorrow.