December 1 - 7

I always enjoy travelling, especially when I get to fly a lot. The anticipation I experienced for my holiday travels this year however, exceeded all of my other recent trips. Days away from my departure I began to count down the time remaining in Vancouver in hours – the immediacy of my impending travels was thrilling. Once I arrived at the airport I had no difficulties but my Friday up to 4:30pm was set to a frenetic pace of trying to get too much done in a too small amount of time. Thankfully my flight was delayed by snow in London and I had to hand the amazing resources of awesome!A who gave me her time and transportation to the airport.

I arrived at Vancouver International for the suggested three hours prior to departure and breezed through check-in and security. I haven’t flown internationally through Vancouver before – flying to the US, while technically international, still only merits an intermediary wing between domestic and international flights. The airport was fairly empty and I found my way to a sit-down meal as I had plenty of time to fill. My colleagues would be arriving at our office Christmas party soon and although I have always enjoyed myself, I could not find it in myself to regret that I would be missing the event this year.

I phoned my mom to chat since I would not be home for Christmas and then wished awesome!S happy holidays. Soon enough I was boarding the plane that would take me to London and thence to Kuwait City. I did not have a window seat on the first leg of my journey but as we would be flying over a lot of ocean I didn’t mind too much. I did miss seeing the sunrise though which I find to be truly amazing when you are flying so high in the air. I slept easily through most of the flight to London and once I navigated through the large Terminal 5 I found my way to the trains.

I have utterly terrible direction when I use trains. It is a sad fact that I can get lost on the Skytrain and you only have a choice of two directions in our city. I was justifiably nervous of using the epic London Underground for this reason and so chose to take the Heathrow Express. With a direct route to Paddington station and a transit time of 24 minutes – this was the train for me. I get on at the airport; I get off at Paddington station. I get on at Paddington station; I get off at the airport. Once I had a coffee in hand, got over the shock of seeing a Krispy Kreme in London and found a map I skirted Kensington Gardens to Hyde Park.

Although I knew I had a long layover in London it was not my original intention to leave the airport as I did not want to risk missing my flight to Kuwait. After speaking with my coworker however, I looked into transportation and events just to feel out the waters. Eight hours is a long time in an airport terminal. Thus it was I discovered the Winter Wonderland held along the Serpentine in Hyde Park. A fan of Sherlock Holmes as I am, I was entertained by the thought of strolling the same park paths as the great detective. I’m also a big sucker for anything Christmas related – and it had a German village! (In England. Ha.)

En route to the park I crossed paths with a horde of rollerblading Santas – a fundraiser for a local club that hosts free meetups for rollerblading in a similar fashion that the Running Room hosts the free run club. I had to give them kudos for navigating the rough park paths and cobblestone streets. I can’t manage roller blades on a smooth surface! I chatted with a few Santas that were taking it easy on the rougher portions and just appreciated being some place different. It had gotten dark quite early – it was only 4pm and I had anticipated having some sunlight during my jaunt out. As a result I did not visit the Norwegian world war memorial that is located in Hyde Park.