The Journey Across the Pond

A week ago we left Canada and have been exploring Royal Tundbridge Wells since. The trip was so exciting that I think the best way to talk about it is to have my friend Geoffrey the Gnome narrate it for us.

Good day everyone! My name is Geoffrey and I come from a prestigious line of travelling gnomes. I have been residing with Diligentdaydreamer and The Hubby for 4 years now and I can tell you I was quite excited to under take this journey with them. After living a sedentary life on their balcony in Ottawa for the last two years it was time for me to see the world again.  I will go through some of my photos to help me show off all of the wonderful things we have seen so far.

My latest adventure started in the early afternoon on Sunday September 16, 2012. With our suitcases packed and ready to go we bundled into the van and headed into town to have a good-bye Lucheon with Grandma. Wendy's won out as the place to go and as far as fast food places go I couldn't complain. I always find they fresh ingredients and have a varied menu where everyone can find something they like. I nibbled on a bit of my toadstool chips while I waited for everyone to be ready to go.  There were tears as good-byes were made and the family headed up to the Memorial Centre to watch an OHL hockey game.

I stayed in the Van as I find hockey rinks bitter cold for my poor little nose, but from the stories I heard afterwards it was a very exciting game between the Kingston Frontenac's and Ottawa 67's. It was good for Diligentdaydreamer to spend the time with her family, even if they were all cheering for different sides.

So with more good-byes and fond memories made we were on our way to Ottawa to spend a night with some friends. It was good to watch my family having laughs with good buddies and relaxing before their flights the next day. I think it made them a little less stressed to know that they were among friends before making such a big change in their lives. I had an early night and fell asleep with Olivia and Sammy the resident cats. I knew it was going to be up to me to wake everyone up the next morning and I didn't want to mess anything up. 8am came all too early and we had to get around and get to the Ottawa airport.

I started to get excited at the airport right away. They had an electric car on display! Us Gnomes are big environment advocates and I really hope electric cars will catch on as the way to travel of the future. Other interesting sites at the Ottawa airport included a canoe, some lovely artwork and of course the planes coming and going. Being a Monday afternoon the place was fairly quiet and it was nice to be able to walk about and look at things with out too many of your big types hanging about. 

Just after 1:30pm our plane pulled into the terminal. We flew on Westjet to Toronto which was about a 45 minute flight. 

We landed in Pearson airport which was full of other flyers waiting to take a plane to some corner of the globe. The Hubby and Diligentdaydreamer were very hungry so they found a place to get some grub called Coyote Jacks.  It was a decent burger and fries joint which allowed all of us to rest our feet and refill our tummies. The cheese burgers looked delicious and the fries were nice and spicy. After lunch we found a nice bench rest on a people watch until our ticket gate for Iceland Air opened up.

It was a lot busier at Pearson airport so I didn't want to wander far from my family, but I did manage to catch sight of one or two interesting things. First off if your doggie can fit in a nylon bag on your lap I guess you can take it on some planes as a carry on. One chap was walking his Yorkie around the airport to give it some exercise before the flight. The Aiport also had Wifi everywhere..even in the bathrooms as their signs pointed out. The last thing that I thought was really neat was the shoe shine booth. I was almost ready to unpack my bindle and start my new life working at the airport in the Shoe Shine, but I had second thoughts so it was time to find somewhere for dinner.

We found a quaint little place for dinner called Beaches. The Hubby had a meatloaf and potatoes and Diligentdaydreamer had a beautiful chicken ceaser salad. I munched some more toadstool myself, but they both said the food was great and hit the spot before getting on a plane for 5 hours.  I think the waiting had started to get to all of us as I was really giddy when I saw the Iceland Air plane pull up to the Terminal.

Our flight took us back over Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland. Diligentdaydreamer got a bit chocked up as Grandma talked about Goosebay fondly as the farthest place she had ever lived and since we went right over it, it hit home how far away we were actually going to be from Canada. The flight itself was good but none of us were able to get much sleep. We watched tv shows like Pingu and the Simpsons, some documentaries about Iceland and movies like Rio and Speed. It was a fun way to pass the time. When the plane landed in Keflavik we were all pretty warn out, to the point that we didn't even play the card game we purchased for the 9 hour layover. We spent most of that time napping, looking out the windows at the barren environment devoid of trees and looking around the few duty free shops they had.

Finally the 9 hours had past and it was time for the final 3 hour flight to get to England. It had been a long trying time in the airport so we were glad to be moving once more. As we boarded the plane I thought to myself that I would like some time to explore Iceland proper next time and not be so tired that I didn't want to move or speak. The plane had only a 10 minute delay over Heathrow airport which was beneficial for us as we got a bird's eye view of the Millennium Eye and Big Ben as well as lots of football pitches all lit up in the night sky. It was 8pm local time but our bodies all felt like it was 3pm E.S.T. so when we got through customs and met up with the In-laws the rest of the trip via the tube and the trains were pretty much a blur.

I Geoffrey the Gnome will now turn the keyboard back over to Diligentdaydreamer as this has been quite a lot of typing for my stubby fingers and I am going to go out into the garden to speak to some of the local snails.

Thanks Geoffrey for filling everyone in our flight details for the trip. Because so much has happened since I will leave you all to read over Geoffrey's entry and will post another blog this week to tell you all of the fun things we saw and did during the first week here. Thanks for stopping by and keep on dreaming

~Diligentdaydreamer