Beginning at the beginning.

The thing about South Africa, and being on a crazy relaxing holiday, is that there are so many food things to share that a little blogger doesn't know where to begin! So after much thought and weighing of the options, I am starting at the beginning...

And the beginning is a British Airways flight from Toronto to London Heathrow.

Flying BA was amazing. I've flown to the UK a couple of times, always on a charter airline, and have found the experience less than excellent. I fly within North America relatively frequently and wouldn't really rhapsodize about the service, but I was anxious to see what the long-haul flight on a proper airline would be like, and BA delivered.

Getting onto the plane, we found a little care packet in our seats that contained a toothbrush with toothpaste, socks, a blanket, and eye shades. Score! I got settled in, flipped through the movie offerings on my personal in-seat television, and promptly went to sleep. I did however wake up in time for pre-dinner snacks and drinks...


Worcester sauce flavored pretzels! SCORE! G's favorite flavor sprinkled onto little pretzels was a big hit and we happily crunched away while downing our drinks.

Yeah, this is what you get when you fly with a nervous flier (me). Poor G often had to keep everything on her tray table because I have some weird block about having the tray table down. It really bothers me, and while I am eating, it's okay, but when it's over, put the tray UP! The wine was mine and the whiskey and ginger ale was G's. We were very relaxed for dinner.

Our choice for dinner was pasta or beef. I chose the pasta because G wanted the roast beef and we had to get different things for photos. Then the dang photo of the pasta didn't come out AT ALL. AND G's beef was better than my pasta. Drat drat and drat again.

But we both started with a cheese and roasted veg salad.


Tasty. It was vinegary, the cheese was salty and soft, and the veg were roasted veg that had sat around in the cold for awhile. No complaints.


Now there's G's beef. Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, and carrots and peas. And delicious to boot. The photo does not justice but believe me, I wish I had ordered it and next time, when asked, I will pick the beef!

We had a strudel for dessert that was served in a very sweet custard sauce...


Lovely. It was soft and chewy with a little apple flavor. It didn't change my life, but I didn't not eat it, either.

After dinner, we had a bit of a snooze. G watched movies, I listened to Eclipse on my iPod and zoned out. I am sure we had some manner of food when we were landing, but I don't recall it in the slightest and there are no photos to jar my memory. Oh well. The dinner portion was great, and had me looking forward to the meals on our even longer trip to Cape Town. But that was hours away and we still had a full day in London...