We had a pretty lazy day. We got up, had breakfast, and headed to a wifi zone with our laptops that was both close by and offered caffeinated beverages. We spent about an hour or so catching up on emails, reading and posting on threads on various forums, generally enjoying our beverages, and doing a bit of planning for the rest of the day. Once we were done, we dropped off our laptops at the hotel and headed out again. Our missions for today were to do some shopping and to have Indian cuisine for dinner.
We started off at Harrods and then wandered over to Oxford Street. Matt and I joked that Bart would have to wear all of his purchases since his luggage was already slightly over the weight allowance when he originally arrived in Europe. We shopped in quite a few stores and managed to make some decent purchases for ourselves.
We used Trip Advisor one final time for our last meal together in London. We narrowed our restaurant choices down to three possibilities. We settled on Chettinad (http://www.chettinadrestaurant.com/) based on the restaurant’s proximity to our hotel … or so we thought. It turns out that it was very close to our previous London hotel, not our current one. Oops! Regardless, we managed to get ourselves there for our 6pm reservation. Bart took all of his things with him as Matt and I would be leaving London the next morning, and Bart would be staying elsewhere. The food was fantastic. I worried that it would be too spicy for me and cautiously ordered a milder lamb dish. I probably would have been ok ordering a dish similar to the curries that Matt and Bart had ordered. It was better to be safe than sorry!
After dinner, we walked back to the nearby Tube station, and Matt and I said our goodbyes to Bart. Bart would be staying another day and night in London and then travelling on to other parts of Europe while Matt and I returned home. Matt and I spent the remainder of the evening carefully repacking our luggage to ensure everything would fit together nicely.
In the morning, we returned to Gatwick Airport via St. Pancras Station. We basically took the same route, in reverse, which we did on the day we had arrived. Everything about our return trip went smoothly. We experienced no delays while on the Tube. When we arrived at St. Pancras and purchased our train tickets, we only waited a few minutes before the train arrived. We went through the check-in, security check, and to the gate with no problems. We even had time to spare to grab some snacks and a coffee for Matt before boarding the plane. Oh wait, there was one small hiccup: we were not able to sit side-by-side together on the plane. In the grand scheme of things, this was a very small price to pay. When we arrived at Pearson, our luggage arrived as well. The sun was shining, and it was a balmy 18C. We also got a “welcome home” text message from Matt’s mom. We caught the first TTC bus and arrived home by 4pm. At home, we discovered a “welcome home” note in the kitchen. We had asked some friends to take care of our plants while we were away. They had left us some treats in the fridge!
It’s so nice to be home! =)