Made it! Happily ensconced in Manchester.

Well I swear there must be a convention of crying babies taking place sometime this week in the UK.
At one point I was surrounded by howling tantrums and had the back of my seat kicked repeatedly.
The one saving grace was that Connor, an infant held by his mother in the seat beside mine, played with his toys and then went into a deep sleep that lasted for the whole trip.

Heathrow was a maze of shuttle bus, immigration, biometric photos taken, barcode stickers stuck on passports, another security scan, bar codes read at the gate and compared to the saved photo in their system, and then a long wait.

Was wished Happy Birthday by the Air Canada agent when she read my passport.  Immigration here asked what I was doing for the 15 days and when told, asked if I had ever done the C2C before.

I put my Virgin Mobile SIM in my cell phone in the airport and registered it.  It works, nothing else to be done and it can be topped up at most ATMs.

The GPS wasn't able to see the satellites through the 767 fuselage but an Embraer didn't block it so here's the track from LHR to MAN.  It also shows some of my wanderings on the ground.
I think we hit around 340 mph.



View Heathrow to Manchester in a larger map


My first impressions of Manchester are very favourable.  Got helped at the train ticket machines without asking... at two different locations.  I'm staying in Eccles, how appropriate.  Have to take the Metrolink trams to get downtown but now I'm resting my 63 year old feet.