When we got to our hotel, Phil and I made plans to meet up the following day at Victoria station in downtown London, then he headed back to his hotel in London. Upon checking into the Europa Hotel in Gatwich we headed to our room through their grungy old hallways. Our room was gross, dirty and completely unsatisfactory (read the TripAdvisor reviews) especially when we were paying £111.00 per night (for a 3 person room). But it was late, really late, I was feeling really crappy so screw it… I needed to go to bed. My sister on the other hand would have none of it, she wanted to get back to Peterborough she exclaimed and have the rest of that day to take it easy. So despite the fact that I told her, nay, urged her that traveling by herself at 3:00AM was a very bad idea, she had a shower and jumped on the 3:15AM hotel shuttle back to the airport by herself so that she could catch the 3:45AM National Express bus to Stanstead, then catch the train back to Peterborough.

Feeling uneasy and worried about her venture alone, I still needed to sleep in order for the following day to go well and hopefully take care of this nasty sickness feeling I was getting.

In the morning (January 3rd, 2007) Karla and I awoke early and went on the hotel shuttle back to Gatwick Airport to catch the Gatwick Express train into Victoria station. We rolled into Victoria Station around 10:00AM, got a quick bite to eat and then met up with Phil, Trevena (Phil’s wife) and their new three week old daughter Lela. Phil and Trevena were very nice, and they planned to show us around London that day. In a single day we pretty much saw all the major sites to see in downtown London. We saw Buckingham Palace, went in one of those neat English taxi cabs, we saw the Prime ministers residence, saw Big Ben, went on the London Eye, went on the London Underground (the tube), saw Piccadilly Square, walked down Oxford Street, shopped in the London Apple Store, wow… we walked around so much, it was great. Our plans were to have a lighter snack around 4:00PM (because we were all hungry) then have a nicer dinner later on. Unfortunately, our lighter snack turned into a slightly larger meal and we were all so tired (and I was feeling like crap at this point) so we never did get to have that meal before we cut the day short at around 6:00PM.

Karla and I headed back on the Gatwick Express to Gatwick, then caught the shuttle back to our hotel to get a good nights sleep in our crappy hotel before having to fly back to Canada the next day. When we got to the hotel, our key wouldn’t open the door so I headed back to the front desk. I spoke with this snotty little front desk clerk would accused me of not checking out that day and only paying for the one night. When I offered to show her the receipt saying that indeed I had paid for two nights and her computer was wrong, she wouldn’t let me into the room to get it. Remember, I’m really not feeling well and I’m really tired at this point, and there is this little snot at the front desk of a crappy hotel preventing me from getting to bed. I was pissed. I eventually convinced her to pick up her phone and call the travel agency to get it straighten out. So she did this and looked pretty stupid when I was right and she was wrong. Oh well. We grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading back to our room, then turned in for the night.

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