Sasha booked her travel through work, and we aligned on flights for the way back - as late as Sasha's workplace booking portal would allow on the Sunday plus be affordable for me was the key, and we found an Easyjet fight from Gatwick which suited. I just had to get to London on the Friday evening - but the options were a bit limited, since I was booking flights less than 2 weeks away. The flights at the best times were way expensive, but there were two late evening flights that were at the same time, going to the same airport (leaving from different Berlin airports), and were much the same price. One was Ryanair - so I booked the one which wasn't Ryanair, as I was getting really, really sick of flying Ryanair! Our friend Nat kindly again offered to put us up at her place, and that was that - we were going to London!
Day 0 - Getting to London
Security and boarding did not take long when it finally came, and I settled into my assigned window seat up near the back - the seat was comfy, wide and had a lot of leg room also. What's better yet, I ended up having the row of 2 seats to myself and we were indeed served the inflight snack (a rather tasty wrap from memory) and I had an Orange juice - BA having phased out the free Alcohol some time before, which used to be a feature. Far, far preferable to Ryanair! Landing at Stansted was on time, and I made my way on the Stansted Express to Liverpool Street where I caught a London Double-Decker bus to Nat's house, arriving not long after midnight and Sasha let me into the house.
Day 1 - History and Friends
Day 2 - Roast Lunch and back to Berlin
For the pub lunch, Sasha had chosen a fairly swanky pub as the venue near Victoria Station - near there, because that was the station that we'd need to leave from to get to Gatwick. It transpires that it was not as close to Victoria as we had thought, but when we arrived we found our booked table. It was just as well we'd booked as the place filled up and became over-packed, with people coming and then having to go because there was no tables! We'd booked for up to 8 people but by the time we'd gotten there we knew it was a maximum of 6, so we were able to let the little end-table go and be moved elsewhere for someone else to use. In the end we had the maximum of 6 - Sasha and myself, Nat, Kyle, our friend Mel and then lucky last, Mel. Sasha and I were the first ones there, the rest came in dribs and drabs sometime later. The roast was actually very delicious - definitely one of the better ones and the Yorkshire pudding was this amazingly huge puffball! We ate, drank and talked about all manner of things for a few hours until it was time to be moving on. |