Monday 24 July 2006
Highlights: British Airways First Lounge – The amazing shower

The very long day beginning at 5.20 am in the morning.  I walked to the Finnair airport bus which got me to the airport at around 6.30 am.   Using the Finnair lounge I had my first shower of the day (not enough time at the hostel plus lounge shower was always going to be better).

The plane left on time at 8.05 am and I arrived at Heathrow Airport at 9.05 am local time (3 hours later).   It’s very hot in London at the moment.   They had fans on everywhere; obviously the airport is not designed for hot days.   Checking into the British Airways First Lounge at 10.00 am I had 7 hours to kill before my 5.15 pm flight to Vancouver.   I made the most of the waiter service and the great showers that they have here (the shower had 8 different points of water coming out!).

The British Airways First Lounge was amazing and definitely worth visiting even for so long but I definitely felt a little out of place in this very upper class lounge with very formally dressed passengers and me in my best backpacking travel clothes being many class levels below.  I did get asked a number of times by waiter staff to check my boarding pass to ensure I should be in this lounge!

I’m chasing the sun today.   I’ll be arriving in Vancouver at around 6.35 pm, this is just over 25 hours after I got up and the sun will be shining all the way.   The time difference is 11 hours (with 12 hours being the most possible) so very close to be the exact opposite side of the world.   The jetlag was an issue on arrival as I just wanted to get to my hotel but unfortunately they lost my luggage.  It turned out it was back in London.