Getting to London

Getting to London

In a dramatic change of pace and scenery, I traveled to London last weekend to check out the sights. A feeling of discomfort had been welling up for some time and finally I reached a point where I had to get out of Crawley. I didn’t want to spend another weekend going to the city center and just hanging out. So after a lot of deliberation between going on Saturday or Sunday, I decided to go on Saturday itself. So, on Saturday morning, with Ronnie’s camera, a bottle of water and a packet of Mars Flapjacks for refreshment, I set out towards London. First point in my journey was to get to Gatwick airport. At Gatwick airport, I had to ride the little shuttle between the terminals.

I tried clicking a picture of the monorail, but this is what came out.
It’s actually a monorail goingby as I am in another one. So it got a very whizzy look like in the cartoons when stuff moves at high speed.


Then I bought a ticket for the Gatwick express which runs from Gatwick airport to London Victoria. It gets to London Victoria in half an hour and doesn’t stop anywhere in between.
There was this American couple sitting near me who was also visiting London. The guy was loud. Infact he was so loud, you could hear him chewing his gum from the next compartment. In between the continuous chatter of chewing gum, he would make some loud comments to his wife who was more interested in a book which she was reading. So Mr. Loud goes ahead and scans through his Guide to Britian and compares with a map of London he had. My interest in these two waned as I moved onto checking the scenery outside. Most of the trains that passed me went by so fast; it was gone in the blink of an eye.
But the excitement of getting to London, was always at the back of my head, and so during the entire ride, I was trying to figure out what I would do and how I would travel. As my eyes darted over a complicated map of the London underground interspersed with the various tourist attractions, a pretty voice informed the travelers that they had reached London Victoria and thanked them for traveling on the Gatwick express.

And that was that. I was in London. Finally.