London/Paris Trip, 26/27 Dec- Flying to London

We flew out of San Diego the morning of the 26th after dropping the kitties off at jail. Our first flight was Alaska Air to Seattle; 2nd flight was on Iceland Air to Keflavik. The Iceland Air flight was OK, but very warm, which was very odd. Our plane landed around 9am Iceland time (same timezone as London) and it was pitch black out. We had to go down steps to the tarmac and take a bus to the terminal, but the blast of Icelandic air was a welcome refreshment after the warm plane ride. Noreen and I explored the terminal (oddly deserted) and duty free shop and then off to LHR. My plan was to take the Heathrow Express into town and then get a cab at Picadilly (where HEX runs to), but due to the rail work in London being done by National Rail and TfL (Transport For London), the HEX trains were not running that day, so we took the tube into Kings Cross, where our hotel was. It was a looong ride into Kings Cross. It was cool & misting in London when we got there (what a surprise) and we found the hotel, just a couple of blocks away from the station. The elevators in the hotel were TINY, so we rode up separately (barely big enough for 1 person and a big suitcase). Our room was on the top floor (7th in "English", 8th in American) and you can see from the pics the nice view we had. The room was very small, but we're used to that after Japan & Korea. The hotel doesn't give you anything for free - we paid the £12 for the wifi for the entire stay and £2/each for towels, which is fine. The hotel isn't really intended to be a long-stay hotel, it's a cheap (but very nice) hotel. We walked around a bit and found a mediocre all-you-can-eat buffet place for dinner and then back to the hotel.