Time for another trip - another attempt at a blog!
This time, we're off to Dublin, Ireland, followed by Scotland and finally London in the UK! Ramona has a work seminar in London, which paid for her ticket, so we just had to come up with airfare for yours truly and we were golden!
Unlike many of our other trips, we didn't do a great deal of exhaustive preparation. Sure, Mona reviewed lots of good AirBnB locations, but we didn't research a lot of places to visit. This trip will be very "organic" for us, letting us figure what we want to do as we go, instead of a lot of planning and research. So, without further ado, let's go!
Our trip began with a short flight from Detroit to Toronto. We spent the night at my parents' house in Pontiac, so that we could have my recently graduated nephew Aaron Lewis drive our car back to my parents' home (this should save us a week's worth of parking at Detroit Metro!). We said our goodbyes to Aaron and made our way through security. Our first flight put us on Air Canada from Detroit to Toronto, then onto Dublin. Our Dublin flight wasn't scheduled to leave until late in the evening, so we had a seven hour layover! Toronto Pearson airport is nice, but anyone can tire of an airport after a few hours. Ramona researched a bit and found we could take a train from the airport and go to the city center in Toronto! We bought a ticket and took a quick 30-min train ride to the city.
Downtown Toronto is nice and clean. After exiting Union Station, we walked a few blocks to the St. Lawrence market, an indoor market of food stands, grocers and fresh meats and fishes. We wandered a bit before finding a nice Greek food stand for lunch. Refueled by a quick salad and gyro, we continued to walk through downtown.
We made our way to the CN Tower, where this photo was taken, and encountered a tour group, up from Tennessee. The gentleman we spoke too was really enjoying his time, especially since the weather was so much cooler than down south.
After winding our way back to the train station, we returned to the airport. The international terminal consists of a massive number of tables, each equipped with an iPad and power outlets. You can order foot from the iPad and have it delivered right to your table. This worked out nicely, since we could park ourselves conveniently near our gate.
Our flight boarded only a few minutes late, due to many other large planes waiting for passengers on connecting flights. Once we were onboard, we discovered much of our cabin was empty, so we quickly spread out to take advantage of the available space! Air Canada isn't known for having too many frills, but we were surprised to find seat power was available, but no in-flight entertainment system - be sure to download the Air Canada app in advance of your travels, since they stream movies and television to the app, instead of installing screens and controls at each seat. Our flight was quiet and comfortable, allowing for a decent sleep on the six hour flight.
