Manchester to London: We're on a bus!

 And that was our day! No really, it takes 5 hours by bus to go from Manchester to London. We got up, ate our breakfast, the hotel drew faces on all the hardboiled eggs, packed back up, picked up some sandwiches and walked to the bus station. From there, good ol' Megabus transported us across half of England, so we put in our headphones and listened to tunes and audiobooks while watching the English countryside go by.

While the seats are about as spacious as an airplane's, I'd still rather be on a bus than a plane for 5 hours. I also saw some cool birds! I think I kept seeing red kites. They had that scissor-tail shape. And some sorta grey hawk thing. And then the usual magpies and wood pigeons and seagulls. I also saw a large cemetery that was the most packed with headstones I had ever seen!

We arrived in London, Victoria at our hotel around 3, just in time for check-in, and decided to give our feet a break. Plus, it's Saturday. All attractions seem to close at 5 and all the dinner restaurants open at 5. So we ordered some food to our hotel from Fanny's Kebabs. My chicken kebab was delicious! And the seasoned fries and halloumi was fantastic! Unfortunately Jeff's lamb kebab rice bowl was missing the important lamb... Opps.

We took a walk around the Victoria area to work off a few of those calories and make room for dessert. We went through the Victoria Station and learned that McDonalds also uses the excuse "the ice cream machines are down" here too! See, we're not all that different! No Mars Bar McFlurry for us. :(  Luckily our hotel has a restaurant that smells like the Cappels in Cheviot so we shared a Cadbury caramel sundae when we got back from our walk. 

And now we're here in our possibly haunted room where the TV turned on by itself and the air turned off by itself. Here's to hoping for my first paranormal hotel experience! :D

So how did you enjoy this day of traveling Jeff?

While stopped at a Service Station (the UK equivalent of a Turnpike Rest Stop, complete with various American restaurant chains), I noticed that there were 5 different avenues to purchase Starbucks. There were two different Convenience Stores inside the main structure, which both had a Starbucks To Go option. There was a Starbucks inside the main structure. There was a BP station that also had a Starbucks To Go station. And, finally, there was a free-standing Starbucks with a drive-thru. 

I thoughtlessly ordered a Cream Soda to enjoy with the sundae, only to realize after cracking it open that is was Heretical Half-Sugar Nonsense(tm). Bah! 

Look, I get it. This is objectively a good thing for a large majority of people, helping them cut down on their sugar intake. But like... the penalty for having Full Sugar is like a 10c tax on the soda itself. LET ME PAY THE TAX~! Unfortunately, most major soft drink manufacturers have taken The Coward's Path and no longer offer full sugar, because they don't want to pay for an extra bottling mixture, I guess? Well, I guess it's Coca Cola for me the rest of the trip. 

I promise that this won't all be complaining, but the number of hotels stocking PG Tips for their tea service is too damn high. [i_would_rather_die.wav plays quietly in the background]

So far, London seems very much "what if New York was built in 1066?", which is what I would expect. We haven't been on the Londerground yet, but will probably end up there tomorrow. Sadly, no castles or parliament or tours of various cool historical stuff tomorrow, since almost all of that is closed on Sundays like I'm in Archbold circa 1996. 

It's been a relaxing day and the deep-fried halloumi (basically farmers/squeaky/day-old cheese) was fabulous.