Reached London

I got out of the house little late (9 AM). I thought that I would reach the airport 2 hours before the scheduled departure time (12:30 PM). However I was so wrong ... got stuck in the flyover before Naraina and to avoid the infamous Naraina traffic, I took the Hari Nagar route. Darn luck ... got stuck in horrendous traffic and finally reached airport at 11:15. However, once I entered the airport, things went pretty smoothly and I was done with all the formalities in about 15 minutes. That was fast !!!

Boarded the plane at 12:20 PM ... the British Airways flight was huge (Boeing 747 – 2 storied aircraft). I got the aisle seat (even though it was in the middle section). However, no one was in my adjacent 2 seats ... so got the much needed space. The aircraft had decent leg space, OK food, and a very nice support staff. The in-flight entertainment too was good. To kill time, I watched many comedy episodes in the TV section. I also watched a movie ... Rock-n-Rolla. It was a usual Guy Ritchie movie with all the “trying to be cool” sequences.

When I got down at Heathrow, I was taken aback by the sheer massive scale of it. I took the train to reach the Arrivals/Luggage section ... weird. I’ve seen few airports, but none of them have a train to take the passengers to different areas of the airport. Again, the things went smoothly and got out of the airport in about 30 minutes. I checked my phone and was surprised to see it working since I did not expected it to access any network. I guess my connection had auto ISD roaming capabilities. I never took my phone outside India, so I never knew about this feature. Nice !!! The driver (he was pre-booked by my office) was waiting for us at the gate. It took an hour to reach the hotel ... on the way we saw the city. It looked a lot like NYC ... the roads, people, houses, lanes and alleys, the distinct smell.

On reaching the hotel, I got to know that the room is not equipped with Internet. Since it was a budget hotel, I expected it. When I enquired about the Internet, the receptionist told me that they have a multimedia package which includes Internet, paid TV, movies on demand, games, etc. But it would cost £10 per day, which my company won’t pay/reimburse. Since the per-diem is not huge, I didn’t found it worth having it. The room was nice though ... neat and clean. Since I was feeling tired, I slept pretty early. Big day coming tomorrow ... the first day at office ...