Springboards

Tokyo – London – Brussels

5^th December – Yesterday we flew from Tokyo to London on Virgin. Ernie said he thought the girls looked very virginal in their red and white uniforms and big smiles. The flight went over the upper part of Russia and although it was daytime it was dark for most of the trip, being December up near the Arctic Circle.  The flight was also over Norway, Finland and Sweden. We caught the train from the airport then a traditional London cab from the train station to the hotel (Thistle Hotel Kensington, opposite Hyde Park) while watching the red double-decker buses that are so much a part of the London street scene.  Last night we went out for a traditional pub dinner of roast beef with Yorkshire pudding at a traditional London pub – The Swan, which has been a licensed pub since 1721 of thereabouts, and was a pub for hundreds of years before that, they say. I enjoyed a cider for the first time since I was in England in the winter of 2002/2003, and Ernie a traditional Aussie beer.

Today we travelled from London to Brussels via Calais and Lille, France, on the Eurostar.  It was interesting watching the French countryside flash past – all the houses in the villages, remembering that some of our relatives and country-men fought and died there during World War I and II. 

We are now ensconced in a hotel room laughingly described as “spacious” that is at least bigger than the pocket-handkerchief room we had last night in London and the even tinier room we had in Japan.  No tea or coffee-making facilities which is a bit of a nuisance, but we will survive.  Off out for a drink and then dinner shortly.