Heading Home...Brighton and Gatwick

Well...it has been a fabulous adventure, but it's time to go home and start to face reality again. It is definitely with mixed emotions that I retrace my steps from Zurich, to Paris to England and then on to Brighton to spend my last two nights.

Brighton is closer to Gatwick airport so I figured that I could sleep in a little longer if I stayed in Brighton versus staying in England. As you all know...I need my beauty rest.


I was supposed to meet my long lost friend Louise (Magic Bus) but unfortunately things didn't work and I found myself alone in Brighton.

But don't worry about me, Brighton is a very cool little seaside town that definitely caters to the thousands of students that go there...mostly to learn English.

So as you might guess, there are casinos, arcardes, restaurants, cafes, kebab shops, fast food and more bars than I can count to appeal to my lifestyle. This is good living.

And once again...I found myself with gorgeous weather. So much so that the joggers (did I mention how much I hate joggers...they make me feel pathetic) were just wearing shorts and T-shirts in December.

The blue sky was brilliant and I think the tiny Taj Mahal like structure found in downtown Brighton looks pretty cool even with my camera.



On my second day in Brighton another bizarre thing happened. As I was sitting in the hostel bar reading a book, a pretty girl walked by so of course I looked at her, but this time she looked back at me and smiled. Wow...how weird is that? And then to my surprise she came right over to me. I wasn't sure what to do and then she said...'dude..it's me' and then I realized in was Ana who I had partied with at the Paris hostel. How cool is that? Yes, it's truly a small world. So get your butt out there!!!

I behaved as much as I could on my last night (even though I spent it at the hostel bar) since I knew I had to get up early to catch my flight home.

I was planning to sleep in a bit longer as I figured I didn't need to arrive to Gatwick airport nearly as early since it wasn't a huge airport like Heathrow. However, I would definitely feel stupid if I missed my flight home so I decided to give myself lots of time. I was up early and as I went down to check out...the bar gang was just finishing their night caps (6:15am) and that pretty much summed up the hostel life for me.


I decided to walk to the train station and soon found that Mother Nature was very unhappy about me ending my trip. The temperature had dropped severely and that was just the beginning of it.

I arrived at the train station at 6:50 hoping to catch the 7:00 train to Gatwick airport only to find out that the train had been cancelled. The guy at the ticket booth was extremely friendly and told me the next best train to take would be at 7:26. I still felt comfortable with my timing, but knew I would have to hustle once I got to the train station at Gatwick.

As I sat down to wait for the next train, an announcement came over that main line trains to London may be delayed or cancelled due to ice on the rails over three specific bridges. That got my 'spidey senses' tingling and soon afterwards the 7:26 train showed cancelled. Yes...now I started to panic as the next scheduled train wasn't for another 30 minutes and I didn't like the pattern that was forming.

I quickly rushed over to the first guy in a uniform and told him of my predicament and he quickly gave me instructions on how to reroute and get to Gatwick. I now had to change trains and things were getting tight. But not as tight as the trains themselves as everyone else had to reroute to London as well. We were packed on like sardines, but luckily I found a seat.

When I got to the stop where I had to change trains, I hopped of and only hit a couple people with my backpack, but no one yelled so I guess they expected it as we were so packed in. I ran to the information booth and the guy told me I had two minutes to catch the next train to Gatwick.

Did I mention it's hard to run with a backpack and day bag strapped to you? If not...IT IS!

I made it to platform 4 and the train hadn't arrived. Whew...I'm going to make it. But being a seasoned backpacker...I don't take anything for granted and started to look at the information boards and quickly figured that the information guy and led me astray and the train coming into platform 4 DIDN'T stop at Gatwick. Another catastrophe averted, but time was running out to catch my plane.

I did manage to catch a train to Gatwick 15 minutes later. I was the last one on the train as everyone was pushing me aside and found myself having to stand with no place to hold on. It was train surfing all the way to Gatwick...except for the 10 minutes the train stopped on the tracks. Didn't they know I was in fear of missing my flight?

It was now time to start to panic as I still had to pick up my tickets from the AirTransat booth and no one was there to assist me. However, it was there I overheard people talking about a flight that was diverted to Heathrow and wasn't even at Gatwick. I soon found out it was my plane. I guess I could have taken that train to London and picked the plane up at Heathrow.

I finally got through check-in. When you're as late as I was, it's nice to only have one person to wait behind. And it was even more relief when I heard that our flight had been delayed. Deep breath and relax!!

Unfortunately, the flight ended up being FIVE hours delayed due to ice at the airport. We finally got off the ground and things got better as the flight attendant who was in my section was quite cute and we start chatting immediately. However, she quickly told me to expect 1-1.5 hours of turbulence. Nice...just how I want to end my trip.

The other cool thing was that I was seated beside a Canadian band 'The TenKens' who had just finished up a UK tour and were heading home. They were very cool. And then it happened...the seat belt sign went back on and the ride began. You know it's a bad flight when the pilot comes on to tell everyone that 'all the toilets are full of people being sick and that you should just ask your neighbours for extra sick bags'.

So that was it! I finished my trip with people puking all around me and five plus hours behind schedule. But I guess that was par for the trip and I wouldn't change one minute of my adventure. OK...maybe that's an exaggeration, but it was still definitely a trip of a life time.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about my adventures as much as I enjoyed experiencing them. I definitely wish I had done this when I was in my early twenties, but feel very fortunate that I was able to still do it. It doesn't matter how old you are...I can't stress enough that everyone should get on their 'travel boots' and get out into this big, beautiful world we live in!!

I'll finish the blog with a summary posting outlining some interesting facts about my adventure and some of my favourite pictures.

One more for the road...