Sunday, October 2, 2016

We got up and had breakfast--they had waffles (like the small pre-made ones in the bakery aisle) and a huge container of nutella, yogurt, and coffee. We met another girl who was staying in one of the other rentable rooms in this apartment. She was trying to find a flat because she was moving to Rome from Northern Italy. She spoke pretty good English and shared it was difficult to find a good flat because a lot of them look good on the outside but are old on the inside. She told us we could take the airport train which was only 3 stops away by tram to the airport instead of the one we had tickets for.
The tickets to the airport were universal she said and cost the same price, so it didn't matter where we got on the train just had to be going to the airport. This was a relief because it was going to take us an extra hour to get to the specific station on our ticket. Now it would take us only about 15 minutes. We ended up heading to train station after talking to her just because we didn't know if this was true or not, but there was no assistance to ask a question to. We eventually found a work standing at the train we were going to take and she verified we could get on and it would take us to the airport. We got on the next one which was about a 20 min wait. It started to drizzle a bit which was a nuisance but then the train showed up. It was already packed and we had to shove ourselves on with our backpacks. It was very uncomfortable for the first 3-4 stops, no one really getting off and no where to move, all packed in like cattle. The second to last stop (airport being the last stop), more than half the train got off. This was a huge stadium and there was what looked like a comic convention-lots of people dressed as comic characters. One girl painted her skin blue and apparently pulled off a really good Mystique. 
Our stop came two stops later and it lead us right into the airport. We were early so we went through security (2 min), customs (5 min) (I think this was the fastest entrance into an airport I have every experienced) and then we walked around the restaurants and shops for a bit. Our flight got moved gates so we had to find the new gate but once we got there we boarded in less than 5 minutes.
The plane ride was only 2 hrs and 5 min to London. We got a drink and our choice of nuts/cookie/or chips. We both chose cookies and they were delicious lemon drop cookies. It was a very smooth flight and the flight attendants (all men with British accents) were funny.
London's airport was huge, we had to take a shuttle to the next terminal which was 15 minutes away.
Once we got to the next terminal we called for an uber to bring us to a restaurant that was closest to the place we were staying. Apparently though, on Sundays because soccer is going on and they are super into soccer, they stop serving food at like 4 or something which was a bummer. We walked next door to the grocery store but it was more like a gas station stop so we didn't really find anything. We spotted a couple hole in the wall grab-n-go restaurants across the street so we figured we would try them. One serving pizza and chicken looked disgusting so we passed that one right up. The next option was Chinese and seemed to be the only other option because the rest were closed already (it was only like 5-530PM). Chinese it was. We got some chicken fried rice and sweet & sour chicken. It was okay, mainly because we were starving, nothing like Cantons though!
After we ate quickly, we walked to our airbnb which was about 15 minutes away. It was a cute Asian family, dad, mom, and 2 young kids. The oldest son (about 5) welcomed us, he ran to the door and flung it open. He kept saying hi hi hi hi, so cute! He decided he would give us a tour of his first floor which was pretty crammed. First the shoe rack (where he said we could leave our shoes) and they had slippers there for us to use (Alex said that's a very Asian thing to do), then to the left the bedroom we would stay in which I think is normally a living room with pull-out leather couch (what we slept on), then their were stairs to their bedrooms I would assume (we didn't go up), and then to the right a bathroom and the kitchen. The parents introduced themselves (the father spoke English, but the mother very very little). They took the little boy who then showed us his little brother, upstairs for a bath and they stayed up stairs for the remainder of the night. We were exhausted so we got ready for bed and laid down. Surprisingly the bed was very comfy. We checked the internet and then went to bed.

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