beboots

Day: Negative Seven

All right, so I can't remember how much I've spoken to you guys about this, but in exactly seven days (no, really, my flight would be taking off right about... now) I'll be leaving on a plane to London (Heathrow), then transferring to a flight to Dublin.

This is, of course, assuming that all goes well, and that the volcano cooperates with my travel plans. Which I hope it will; I've been trying to accumulate good karma over the past little while.

As-is, I'm kind of annoyed with myself for booking the flights that I did. I'm leaving just before 7pm on Wednesday, May 26th, and I'm arriving in London sometime around 10am in the morning. Then I sit around for six hours until my 4pm flight. So essentially I "waste" a day, travelling, when I could be exploring the beautiful British Isles! I think I remember looking at another flight, at like 11am or something, but decided that the connection was too tight. But six hours, especially with grabbing my bags, and then running around, probably between terminals, is definitely not enough time to even think about leaving the airport to check out London or anything. No way.

But then again, I'm sure that Heathrow, being the behemoth of a facility that it is, will have something interesting to keep me entertained for a few hours. ;)

I've decided, though, that if my flight is delayed by a day or something due to the ash of a certain malicious Icelandic volcano... I'll look into a train ride to Manchester. My grandmother lives in Leigh, which is apparently a bare fifteen minutes away from Manchester proper, so I'll see if I can drop in and see her. I haven't seen her in person since I was six, but I speak with her like every other week on the phone. You see, I'm not really stopping in England very much.

( This is the plan... )

So if anybody can tell me anything about what trains/busses are like between London and Manchester, I'd be much appreciated! (Being two large metropolitan areas, I'm assuming that people go back and forth between the two regularly enough for there to be an established transit system in place.)

I am definitely planning on writing a travel blog here, as I did two years ago for my summer in France. The posts may be shorter than those ones were, as this time I won't be toting around a laptop. I'll be backpacking it! I do have an iPod touch (although that touchscreen is annoying to type with), but I'm not sure how many of the hostels I'll be staying in have wireless internet/a computer for the lodgers to use for that purpose, so my updates may be sporadic. But there WILL be awesome photographs at the very end, upon my return. And amusing anecdotes, observations on the British Isles from a Canadian's point of view, waxing soliloquies upon the general gorgeous green nature of Ireland and Scotland (and the general brownness of spring in Western Canada), etc.,etc., ad nauseam.

I may also sneak history stories in as well. You can bet I'll be hitting up lots of museums, old crumbling monasteries, breathtaking views, etc. I hope that you guys shall enjoy!

For now... I'll fret and worry that I have everything on my list. I shall update as more ideas (and anxious travel jitters!) occur to me. :)