mrkindallas

I am working on my trip report and my pictures. I have the first four days of a 10-day trip report complete, so here's that portion. I am being very detailed, capturing everything that I remember so that I don't forget it. I tend to be quite wordy, so I forgive you if you don't read it all. =)

As I get to the rest I will post here. If nothing else, I hope that my experiences will at least help someone else with their planning.

DS = dear sister

Let me know if you have any questions.
- Michaela

London & Paris
May 26, 2007 – June 4, 2007

Day 1 – Saturday, May 26 - DFW to London

We arrived at DFW airport at about 2:30p for a 5:00p flight on American Airlines. We found the self check-in machines, scanned my credit card, and the system found our e-tickets. We each scanned our passports into the machine and the machine spit out our boarding passes. Check in done!! That was quick. We head on to the security check-in, expecting long lines on a Saturday afternoon, but find absolutely nobody in line. We are carrying on all our luggage and each have a 21” rolling suitcase and a “personal item” – me: a backpack; and DS: a tote bag. We have a few concerns about being forced to check luggage due to size restrictions or liquids issues, but security was unconcerned about the contact lens solution and prescription liquids/creams/gels that we leave out of our allotted one quart Ziploc bag each. We did, however, remove them from our luggage and place them in the plastic bins that went through the scanners. After putting our shoes back on, putting our luggage back together, and moving some liquid items into places more accessible during the flight, we were completely done with the check-in process and it was only 2:45p!! Since boarding wouldn’t begin until 4:30, we opted for lunch at the airport Blue Mesa and each had a decently tasty chicken salad as we waited for time to pass.
We head to the gate at about 4:15 and wait quietly for the plane, taking last minute restroom runs and pretending not to be nervous about the upcoming long flight. At about 4:35, the attendant announces that our plane arrived late and they are still cleaning it, so we wait around until about 5:00 when they start boarding. The plane takes off at about 5:30 and we are finally on our way to London!!
The small television screens in the seats in front of us allow us to watch the plane’s travel progress, watch in-flight movies of our choice, or listen to music. The earphones provided by AA are horrible, so we grab our own headphones from our MP3 players and use them instead – amazing improvement in sound quality. Those AA headphones are complete junk. We watch “Music and Lyrics” with Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant.
Finally, we inflate our neck pillows and start to let sleep take over. I get a total of about 5 hours of sleep – not bad for a 9 hour flight. DS doesn’t sleep well as she is trying to sleep by leaning over and placing her head on her pillows on top of the fold-out tray in front of her. The woman in the seat in front of her constantly moves around and makes it difficult for her to sleep.

mrkindallas

I typed this in MS Word and it's apparently losing some of my formatting, so I'm sorry if this doesn't appear to be written in paragraphs. Continuing...

Day 2 – Sunday, May 27 – London

We arrive at LGW (London Gatwick)’s North Terminal on time and head for immigration where we are questioned as to why we are only spending a 3-day vacation in London. The explanation that we are subsequently headed to Paris is accepted, our passports are stamped, and we pass through immigration. Not realizing that we still need to go through customs, we start using the maps of the North and South terminals that I printed from the website for Gatwick Airport (www.gatwickairport.com) and brought with me to find the showers. The maps make little sense to me and everywhere that I think a shower should be turns out to be just a WC. We see an escalator to the far left with an oddly-shaped permanent barricade allowing a person to walk through to the escalator with only small luggage. We aren’t sure of the purpose and question to ourselves whether we are actually allowed to use the escalator. After glancing around and not seeing anyone to prevent us from riding the escalator, we ride down one floor and are still confused by the maps in my hand and the failure of this floor to match what I think the floor should look like based on the maps that I hold. We figure that we have gone the wrong way and go back upstairs via the elevator nearby. Back upstairs, we ask an airport worker for assistance and she directs us back down the same escalator and says that we must choose a path through customs: “declare” or “nothing to declare” before looking for showers. Oh yea, customs!
We head back down the escalator and choose to walk underneath the sign boasting “nothing to declare” and we walk straight through customs hall without any stops or questions. That seemed too easy, but we walk out of customs hall into a crowded area of passengers and my map suddenly seems to make sense and I make a beeline for the position marked with the shower symbol on my map. We get there and find nothing but showers, so I am again confused by the maps that I had momentary trust in and suddenly feel completely lost and think about giving up on the idea of a shower after all. Instead, I see an information booth with no line, so I walk up to the counter and the gentleman advises that they have remodeled the North Terminal and there are now only showers in the South Terminal and points us to another set of elevators a few yards away.
We get on the elevator and find follow signs to the South Terminal, finding ourselves getting on a train to complete the journey. We finally reach the South Terminal and find ourselves lost again as the map that I have for this terminal simply helps me get up to the Village level and then I’m again lost. We almost make a guess to head left, but a worker walks by and we politely ask him for help. At first, he has to think about the answer to my question about where the showers are, but then he seems to suddenly remember and give us directions. The directions sound a little confusing with a distant destination and I begin to think that he is sending us on a hike back to Dallas for a shower, but we follow his directions and find ourselves outside of three showers with a phone and a sign with instructions to call for towels and soap. We dial, an operator answers, we ask for towels and soap, and begin to wait. I realize that I don’t have any local currency yet and towels and soap cost £1 per person, so I head down the hall to use the ATM, which denies access to my account. I try another – also doesn’t work. Uh oh….I had planned on using my ATM/debit card quite a bit and did bring some USDs, but not much. I get a sick feeling to my stomach and have a million thoughts rush through my head about having to find a way to get money in order to take the train to central London, to pay for our room, for meals, for the things we planned to do, for emergencies, etc.
I head back over to the shower and continue to wait. We wait quite some time before a kind woman shows up to tell us that they are out of towels and someone should be along shortly. More waiting and she waits with us. Even she becomes antsy and starts using the phone looking for the towels and pacing the hallway. I explain that I only have USDs and give her $6.00 to go exchange for local currency at the change bureau, which she does. At this point, I am seriously thinking about forgoing the entire shower at the airport idea and hoping that our hotel room would be ready early so that we could shower there, but I decide to continue to wait. Finally, a male worker shows up with a cart full of towels and soap, we each get ours, and we are let into the showers. They aren’t the cleanest of all showers, but I’ve showered in state park showers before which are much worse. Thankfully, there are no bugs here – just other people’s hair and used soap. It’s a small simple room with a shower, a sink, and a mirror. There is a little space on the floor to open my luggage and rummage through for the items I needed for my shower as well as a clean set of clothes. I put on the sandals that I packed specifically for the public shower and bathed quickly as I heard more people show up outside to use the showers. After dressing, brushing my teeth and hair, and applying a minimal amount of make-up, I gave up the room to the next person waiting in line.
Feeling refreshed and walking through the airport with wet hair, we find our way to the trains and see the self-service machines. A group of people are standing at one complaining that the machine took their money and didn’t give them train tickets, so I cross my fingers and try another machine, hoping that my debit card would work. The screen initially displays only tickets for the Victoria Express and I know that the Southern Train is cheaper and takes very little extra time, so I scroll through the screens until I find the ticket that I want. I purchase one, but can’t figure out how to change the quantity, so I have to go through the process a second time in order to purchase the second, hoping that my bank doesn’t deny me because the second transaction would appear to be a duplicate of the first – in a foreign country. I tell myself that there won’t be a problem because I called my bank before leaving and placed travel alerts on my accounts – and I had opened a second account at the same bank and split my money between the accounts just in case I lost a card and needed to instantaneously transfer money to a different account – or somehow my credit card information was jeopardized and I needed to cancel a card due to fraud. The second transaction is approved and the second ticket prints. We take our tickets, figure out which platform to go to, and as soon as we reach it, the train is pulling up and opening the doors. We check to make sure this is our train and hop on before the doors shut.
The train is quite crowded when we first get on, so we stand with our luggage. A large group that looks like they just came back from Hawaii – or somewhere tropical – with flowered leis around their necks – takes up a lot of space with oversized luggage. An official comes by checking tickets and we show ours, confirming that we did in fact get on the right train. After the official passes, the grayed woman in the seat that I am standing next to asked if I purchased my tickets at Gatwick. I answer “yes” and she states that she didn’t see where to purchase the tickets and boarded the train believing that she could purchase a ticket on board. I wonder how she could have missed the machines and lines for tickets, but I don’t say anything. She says that she hopes the official will come back so she can talk to him about it, but I think to myself that if I were her, I’d hope that he didn’t come back and that I got out of my destination station without issue.
The group back from their beach vacation gets off at the first stop, freeing up room in the luggage racks. We store our luggage and take a seat right next to the racks and across the aisle from a group wearing rugby jerseys and drinking canned Gin and Tonic and water bottles filled with vodka. It’s only about 11:30a, but they are celebrating something – or preparing for an upcoming celebration. They get off at one of the stops before Victoria and we see many more people with rugby jerseys get off at the same stop. I know nothing about rugby – and wouldn’t even know that these jerseys were for rugby except that I was eavesdropping on the conversation of the group across the aisle from us.
After the stop where we lost all of the rugby passengers, the train was very quiet and we both started to doze off. I tried to stay awake because I was interested in the passing landscape and towns, but the jet lag was winning the battle. Between watching the passing trees, looking down into the backyards of the homes bordering the train tracks, and getting glimpses of small town, I doze for a few minutes here and there. We finally arrived at Victoria, exited the turnstiles (which failed to return our train tickets to us!) and followed the other passengers into the main part of the station. The train station struck me as a little odd in that it seems to be indoors, but the atmosphere is very outdoors-like: people are loud, pigeons are everywhere, and smoking is not prohibited. I never really decided whether I was inside or outside whenever I was at a train station in London. I found a set of ATMs with a line of about 10 people waiting and they appeared to be functioning, so I decide to jump in line and try my luck. It worked!! I was able to withdraw £200 and was glad to know that I could access cash through this ATM and that it would be an ATM that I would walk by every day since our hotel was within walking distance and we would be accessing the Tube at this station.
We find our way out of the station and, in a dreary, cold rain, walk a couple of blocks to the Cherry Court Hotel, arriving at about 12:15p. We buzz into the front door and the kind woman who greets us gives us a key to the room and to the front door, explaining that the lobby desk closes at 11:00p. We are to pay when we check out. She finds that our room has just been readied (good thing we went ahead and took the showers at Gatwick – better to spend the time there rather than waiting around the hotel for the room to be cleaned) and we head up to the first European (second USA) floor to find our very small room.
The room is just as I read – small, but clean and adequate. The full-size bed nearly occupies the entire room, but we do find a little space for our luggage on one side and the end of the bed. Towels and soap are provided. A coffee machine, tea packets, and 4 glasses sit on a built-in bookshelf. A sliding door leads to the very small bathroom. The only awkward thing is that the door to the bathroom is filled with panes of glass, making your entire bathroom experience visible to your roommate. There are no small bottles of shampoo or conditioner and no hair dryer, but none were expected. Basically, we got exactly what I expected of the room – although I did imagine “small” to be just a bit bigger. I am from Texas, though, and as they say “everything is bigger in Texas,” so small to me is probably medium to someone else…at least it’s a theory. The room is not a disappointment since I had researched the room and prices of hotels in London and I feel lucky to get a clean room at such a relatively great price in such a good location.
After dropping our bags and packing our daypacks (we each have a PacSafe bag that we drape across our bodies – me: a black one purchased a REI that is more “laptop-sized” and zips across the top; and DS: a green/cream-colored one purchased online that has a flip-over flap and several compartments – each is perfect for what we end up needing each day throughout the trip), we head back to Victoria station and find the entrance to the Tube. We head downstairs and jump in the line for the ticket/information windows in order to get Oyster cards. We each get an Oyster card with £20 (£3 deposit + £17 in fare money) to last for our 3-days in London and then head for the subway – err, Tube. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden a subway and I forget that I have to pay attention to directions before heading for a platform, so we end up at the wrong platform. Luckily, I realize it before we hop on the subway, so we find our way over to the opposite platform and finally board the subway headed toward Westminster station.
We arrive at Westminster and follow the crowds up the stairs to the street and, half-way up the stairs, we start to say “WOW!” as the top of Big Ben (I know that’s not the name of the tower – it’s the name of the bell – but I’ve always called the tower that and don’t know what to call it otherwise) and the Parliament Building start to come into view. We aren’t the only ones standing in awe on the side of the street while the locals stampede past us in their hurry to get wherever they are going. I look to the right and identify the towers for Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey is the first thing on our itinerary for tomorrow and we are currently headed for the London Eye, so we take a few obligatory pictures, comment on the red double-decker buses, the traffic driving on the “wrong” side of the road, the cold, the rain, and the crowd, get our bearings, and head for Westminster Bridge. There are many more people here than I expected and they walk much faster than I expected. In some way, I feel like I am in New York City, but even though it is cold and rainy, London is currently more attractive to me than New York City. I try to let myself accept the city as it is and not try to make it what I imagined it would be as I also try to ignore the mob of people trying to cross the street and bridge with us.
Much of Westminster Bridge is under construction, but I find a good place to take a picture of DS with the London Eye and Thames River in the background. We continue across the bridge, and turn left to walk past the County Hall toward the London Eye looking for a place to purchase tickets. On the way, I notice that every light post seems to be a piece of artwork – and this is true of many lampposts that we see in both London and Paris – just beautiful. I had decided not to purchase tickets for the London Eye ahead of time on the internet because I knew it would be raining and couldn’t accurately predict our exact schedule for the day due to the many things that could go wrong with travel delays and my insistence on showering before sight-seeing. We are not able to find a ticket booth, so we ask the person monitoring the entrance to the ride line where to purchase tickets and she directs us to the inside of the County Hall. We find the right door, join the line, and emerge about 15 minutes later with our expensive tickets and little fan-out souvenir booklet that we’ll be able to use in “flight” to pick out and label landmarks and buildings from either a North, South, East, or West perspective (each has it’s own fan page) by referencing the directional labels on the top of pod.
We decide that we are hungry and there is a sandwich stand just outside the ticket office exit, so we stop to pick out a couple of expensive sandwiches. We weren’t familiar with the contents of many of the sandwiches, so we picked something that looked semi-familiar and hoped for the best. With two waters, our meal came out to nearly £17.
We took our sandwiches and water to the nearby tables and chose an empty table next to an outdoor heater and prayed for some of the heat to reach us and evaporate the rain as we munched on our sandwiches in the cold rain. The pigeons are quite aggressive requiring shooing every so often; we became somewhat protective of our expensive sandwiches that were starting to get a little soggy in the rain and were subject to a pigeon snatching at any moment. My tuna sandwich is fine and DS’s meat and cheese sandwich has an odd taste (possibly the sauce), but she eats most of it. There is a little card on the table that explains that pickpockets work in the area and it defines three different ways that you may have your belongings taken from you. I don’t remember what they were, but I do know that there was no warning about the feathered thieves stalking your meal.
We get up and wish for a way to take the heater with us, but are thankful to leave the overly aggressive pigeons. We get in line to ride the London Eye and wait less than 15 minutes to board. It’s a short line and moves very quickly. As one group exits a pod at one end of the platform, a security team gets ready to board. The security team quickly enters the pod and searches for bombs, exits and then the next group of passengers boards. The Eye is in constant motion and doesn’t stop to let passengers on. The boarding platform is set up so that there are several groups of 4 or 5 people lined up and each group is allowed on as your pod passes you by. It’s an odd feeling to walk from a still platform into a slow-moving pod, but there is no time for hesitation. Before you know it, you are in your pod, the door is being locked behind you, and you are among a group of about 20 others that you get to share the experience with. Everyone wants to take pictures at the far end of the pod at the same time and I hate being in the middle of a crowd, so I take some pictures of the Eye and our neighboring pods. Eventually, the crowd starts to disburse around the pod and I make it to the far end. Using the souvenir booklet, we identify important places: the Parliament Building, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Waterloo train station, and take in the view up and down the Thames. Although you see that you are moving, the ride is in no way like a ferris-wheel ride. I did not feel queasy at all. In fact, it was a very comfortable ride and toward the end, I started to get a little tired. Actually, DS sat on the bench in the middle of the pod and dozed off for a bit. Toward the end of the ride, cameras outside the pod took a souvenir picture which we did not purchase. When it was time to get off, it was much like jumping out of a slow-moving bus onto a sidewalk. The pod continues to move as you hit the still platform and notice the sudden change from movement to non-movement and the pod passes behind you toward the security team who will check to make sure your group did not leave any bombs behind before letting in the group that is about to occupy your pod and have essentially the same experience that you just did.
We stop at the Dali Universe (also in the County Hall) and use a coupon that I printed off the internet from the Dali Universe website for buy 1 – get 1 admission free. We spend just a little time here. I think that Dali is fascinating and am excited to see the work on display here, but am a little disappointed that some of the things I would have liked to see were not here. I wanted to purchase a book on Dali’s illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy, but at £22, I decided I’d try to find it online later. I think DS was somewhat bored by Dali since she hadn’t heard of him before and she hasn’t taken the humanities, arts, and psychology classes that would make a person appreciate this gallery.
Originally, I planned on heading to the National Gallery at this point by walking back across Westminster Bridge and heading up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square. However, since DS is falling asleep everywhere and was bored at the Dali gallery, I decide to do the walk to Trafalgar Square and skip the National Gallery. We walk back across Westminster Bridge and pass someone who claimed a spot to play his bagpipes since we last walked by. His playing wasn’t good, but having the street music put me in the “I’m in Europe” mood. We turned right on Whitehall and I point out 10 Downing Street and the Horse Guard Parades as we walk by. We walk across the street for a better view of the mounted guards, take the obligatory pictures, take pictures of a couple who asks us to use their camera (happens several times throughout the trip), and then stop at the red phone booths nearby to take a couple of pictures of DS at the phone booth. She is excited about seeing Buckingham Palace, so at Trafalgar Square, we turn toward the Admiralty Arch and walk down the Mall toward Buckingham Palace. Traffic at Trafalgar Square was horrendous and we really didn’t see much of the square. I do wish that we had crossed the street and seen the fountains and gotten a greater appreciation for the square since we never made it back here, but we didn’t.
It is a decent walk to Buckingham Palace and as we get closer, the rain starts to come down a bit heavier. We finally make it and take pictures of the Victoria fountain and the gates at Buckingham Palace. We get a glimpse of Wellington Arch way down an empty tree-lined street and take a picture and then watch a non-ceremonial changing of the guard. Well, it’s ceremonial, but not the big to-do that takes place in the morning. We are amused by the way the new guard walks backwards into his post at the end of the ceremony – like a toy soldier in reverse – with a bit of Michael Jackson moonwalking in the movement. By now, we are exhausted and jet-lagged and decide to walk down Buckingham Palace Rd back to the hotel. We stop at a gift shop on Buckingham Palace that seems to be associated with the palace and are interested in a few things, but decided not to get them. I believe it was the gift shop for the Queen’s Gallery, but I’m not really sure.
We are hungry and see a place called Bag o’Nails up ahead. This is our first restaurant/bar experience in London, so we aren’t really sure of the protocol. It looks like we can choose a table for ourselves, so we do and start to look at the menu sitting on the table. The bartender walks by several times and never greets us, so we aren’t sure whether we are supposed to order food from the bar or wait for someone to come serve us. Eventually, we realize that there is a dining room upstairs, so we pick up our belongings and head up there. The stairs are small in that your entire foot does not fit on it from front to back (seems to be the way stairs are made in Europe) and DS stumbles and falls because we don’t have the coordination down for walking up these stairs. We reach the top, laughing, enter another door and, after a few minutes of standing there unsure of whether to wait or choose a table, someone comes and brings us to a table. We realize that the menu is slightly different than downstairs – with higher prices (ahh…service included in the price upstairs…we realize then that we could have ordered from the bartender downstairs for slightly less). We go ahead and order. DS gets fish and chips and non-mushy peas. What are mushy peas, anyway? We never did try them. I order London Sausage and Mash, which is bratwurst and mashed potatoes with brown gravy. The bratwurst was a bit bland and overcooked (dry at the ends), but the potatoes and gravy were good. DS described her meal as bland, but cleaned her plate…well, except for the few runaway peas that rolled off her plate and over the side of the table. DS had Pepsi and I had water, but forgot that I should have specified natural/tap water because I ended up with mineral water. On the other hand, the tap water that I had tasted from the hotel bathroom sink wasn’t the best water I’d tasted and this Acqua Panna that I was drinking was quite possibly the best water I’d ever had. I think it was bottled in Italy. I tried to peel the label off of the glass bottle, but the bottling company certainly believes in strong glue as that label would not budge. I took a picture instead. Dinner came to a total of about £22.
After dinner, we go straight back to the hotel, but pass up our turn and walk an extra block before realizing the mistake, turning and finally making it back to the hotel. We drag our tired bodies up the narrow stairway to our room were we find a breakfast basket with 2 bananas, 2 apples, 2 oranges, 2 juices, a package of crackers, and a granola-like bar. We both fall asleep on the hard bed listening to the rain fall outside and feeling it get colder and colder as night fell. We sleep on top of the duvet because the bed it helps soften the bed a little. We both woke up at some point, our internal clocks not yet adjusted to the local time. The length of the day in London doesn’t help with resetting our clocks. It seems like it was only truly dark from about 10:30p to 2:30a every night. We snack on some items from our breakfast basket, turn on the television and end up watching some British comedy before falling asleep again, this time underneath the duvet because we were freezing. Sometime later in the night, I wake up again and realize that the window next to our headboard is open and that is why we are freezing, so I shut it and read a book (“The Memory Keepers Daughter” by Kim Edwards – highly recommended) until I fall asleep again. It was a long night because we went to bed so early and because our internal clocks were so messed up at that point.

mrkindallas

Day 3 – Monday, May 28 – London

Our goal today was to be at Westminster Abbey by the time it opened at 9:30, so we got up pretty early, ate the rest of the items in our breakfast basket, and took the same path back to Westminster Tube station that we took the day before. We were running a little behind schedule, but we were there by at least 9:45a. After taking a few pictures from the outside and admiring the detail of the arched entrances, we entered and paid our entrance fees. Although the turnstiles ate our train tickets the prior day, we were able to use the 2-for-1 coupon that I had printed from the internet (which was supposed to require proof of a train ticket).
We used Rick Steves’ London 2007 book to guide us through the Abbey. I know that many despise him, but I really liked having his books in both London and Paris to help explain what we were seeing at different places and to tell us to look for things that we would have otherwise missed. His humor can get tiring, but the explanations are decent for the average tourist who seeks some understanding/knowledge of a place. It also pointed out things that interested DS – like mentioning ceremonies that she would know of taking place here and there – and pointing out things/names that interested her. It is up to the individual to do more research on things that interest them…and I plan on doing some of that as soon as I finish this trip report….which, at the current pace (already on page 8 and only on day 3 of a 10-day trip!!), may take quite some time.
Anyway, the Abbey was a highlight of our London experience. We spent the entire morning there exploring all the nooks and crannies. I wondered what it would be like to be a cat running free in this place with so much to explore. We imagined attending a coronation with trumpets blaring and the crown jewels being placed upon a royal head. We took a seat toward the end of our self-tour before exiting the building and just took in the ambience. We would also do this in every church that we visit during our trip – sitting to get a little rest and just taking everything in.
We exited the Abbey and took a picture of the 1998 statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. over the doors. His statue was one of ten unveiled in July 1998 depicting modern martyrs. We entered the gift shop but it was too crowded to move around, so we spent less than 5 minutes looking at the area near the entrance before heading out.
We were hungry and didn’t see anything around. The next stop on the itinerary was the British Museum and I figured there would be a decent selection of food in that area, so we took the Tube to the area near the British Museum. When we exited the subway, I had a hard time figuring out which direction to head, so we chose to go right on New Oxford Street. We saw a Subway (sandwich shop) up ahead and decided that would suffice for lunch, so we went in and ordered our sandwiches at the counter, got cookies with our meals since we couldn’t identify the chips that were for sale, and took our meals to a table upstairs next to a window where we watched the crowd walk up and down New Oxford Street, stopping into the metal music merchandise store across the street, and going on with their resident lives. Today is a bank holiday, but I’m not sure how much that affects the entire workforce and whether this is a vacation day for most people. If it was, it didn’t affect our plans for the day at all.
We felt like we were far away from the tourist mobs here and the street scene reminded me more of Washington, DC’s Georgetown area. After finishing our sandwiches, we headed back out to the street and I tried to get my bearings on direction. I then remembered that I had a small compass inside my bag, so I pulled it out and learned that we had headed the wrong way out of the subway exit. Our feet were tired from the long walk the day before and the constant standing and walking all morning, so we decided to take the bus up the street. The problem with the bus was that the stops were not announced and it was hard to find street signs, so we didn’t really know when to get off. I was trying to follow along on my map, but some small streets were missing from my map and it messed up my count. I felt like we had passed up the stop, so we got off and went over to the map at the bus stop to try to determine where we actually were, but there was no “you are here” marker. We decided to walk back about a block and then head north and started to head away from the bus stop when someone who had been standing underneath the bus stop shelter came out to help us. He told us that we had gotten off at the right place and the British Museum was just up the next street.
We walked over to the next street and turned right and saw the museum just ahead of us. We walked through a souvenir shop on the corner across from the museum and saw the first decently priced souvenirs of the trip, but didn’t purchase anything. We went on into the museum and again used Rick Steves’ London 2007 book to guide us to the highlights of the museum: the Rosetta Stone, Egyptian antiques, mummies, Greek antiques, etc. I really enjoyed the museum, but became overwhelmed with the number of things to see. DS seemed pretty bored here and fell asleep in the Greek area. “How can you sleep though this?” I wondered.
DS had been more excited by the list of things that I described for viewing at the British Library, so although I hadn’t planned on going there, we left the British Museum and headed to the British Library. We took the Tube to King’s Cross and when we came out, we encountered our first beggar coming up and asking for money. After shooing her away, we tried to get our bearings and find the British Library. We weren’t really impressed by this neighborhood and I was actually kind of concerned about our safety here. There were not many tourists around – and really not many residents either. The British Library was a little harder for us to find, but we finally did by trusting our instincts, Rick Steves’ description of how to get there, and the map and compass.
We entered a large courtyard that was void of human life due to the rain. In the center of the courtyard was a large naked Isaac Newton statue crouching down with what appeared to be a compass. We wondered why Isaac is naked and I joked about going closer to see just how naked Isaac was, but with our weary feet and the rain, we just admired his naked statue from where we stood. We entered the building and again relied on Rick Steves to guide us through another collection. We walked up to the entrance described in the book and were told that we needed to head over to a table to get free entrance tickets, so we did. We returned to the entrance, turned over the tickets, and entered the exhibit. Apparently, the British Library has rerouted its traffic plan since Rick wrote his description because we ended up in a temporary exhibit and could not access the permanent exhibit through this room as the stairs up to the permanent exhibit were blocked. We wondered through the temporary exhibit that was about bibles of all kinds and about the slight differences between the major world religions. It was interesting and educational, so we did spend a little time there, but it wasn’t what we came to see, so after a while, we came out to try to find the entrance to the permanent collection. We went back to the table passing out the free tickets to the temporary exhibit (now we understood what the tickets were for – timed entranced to the temporary exhibit) and they guided us to the correct door, which was up the stairs and to the left. We spent quite some time here looking at more bibles, a small collection of Beatles memorabilia, illuminated transcripts (beautiful!), the Magna Carta, an exhibit on the original printing method (by the Chinese), pages from Leonardo DaVinci’s notebook, journals of other famous scientists (Galileo and others), original manuscripts of Shakespeare’s works, the Canterbury Tales, etc. For such a small room, there is really a lot of interesting history here.
I was getting a headache and didn’t know whether it was from hunger or from my internal clock trying to reset itself, so I decided we should grab a snack. I saw signs for the café down the hall, so we headed that way, stopping at a long row of wooden panels that pull out of the wall that contain what is possibly the world’s largest stamp collection, including US stamps from the 1800s for 2 cents each. I wondered what 2 cents would really be “worth” at that time (in comparison to today). Although 2 cents seems like a bargain, it’s quite possibly not when inflation is factored in. We got some water and a croissant to share from the café and sat down next to some enormous bookshelves holding some very old huge books. DS took a short nap at the table and I was actually getting a little sleepy myself (despite having slept at least 10 hours last night).
We had tickets to see The Woman in Black at Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden that evening, but we had several hours to spare. We had time to go back to the hotel for a short nap, but felt that time would be tight, especially if we wanted to eat dinner before the show. Plus, I ordered the tickets online at a discount and needed to pick them up from the box office at least one hour before show time or they could be released, so we went on to Covent Garden, expecting to fill the time with some shopping and dinner.
We took the Tube to Covent Garden and went straight to the Marketplace. We walked up and down the aisles of people selling their wares and saw a few displays that interested us, but didn’t purchase anything. Covent Garden Market was not as lively as I had expected, possibly because of the rain, or possibly because of my weariness that was setting in. We walked by all the mall-type stores and stopped in one selling some beautiful amber jewelry and other selling some children’s items, but still didn’t purchase anything.
Finally, we became bored by Covent Garden (I guess shopping doesn’t entertain us that much) and decided to head over to the theatre to pick up the tickets before finding someplace for dinner. We arrived at the theatre only to be told that the tickets had not yet been delivered and that we should just pick them up prior to the show. Wish I’d known that because maybe I would have gone ahead and taken that nap. We walk around looking for someplace to eat as the rain starts to get heavier again. We look at a couple of menus and move on due to price/no interest in the food offered and then came upon The Wellington on Strand. It was busy, the prices were decent, and we could both pick something on the menu that we would eat, so we headed upstairs to the dining room.
Upstairs, we were offered a choice of two tables and chose one with large comfy leather chairs and a small round table. We were looking over the menu when I realized that there were gnats or some type of small flying bug all over the wall behind us. There could have been a hundred right there just by our table. They were taking turns flying around near our heads and crawling all over the pictures on the walls. We were disgusted and decided to leave. Right then, the waiter came back and asked us if we were ready to order. We were somewhat embarrassed by the fact that we had been seated and were leaving, but there was no way that we were going to eat in that place. Instead of being honest about the situation, we told him that we needed a few minutes, waited for him to walk away, then grabbed our stuff and quickly headed for the door, down the stairs, and out of that place. I later wondered how often that happens and, if often, whether the servers know why they lose so many customers so quickly. Discouraged and disgusted by that experience, we started looking for someplace else to eat. At this point, we had really wondered further away from Covent Garden than I had planned, so we start heading back in a little and come across a little bar called Hops!, which had a limited menu, but was cheaply priced and we both found something on the menu that we would eat. We went in and chose a table ourselves. I made my first food order at a bar, realized that they would probably want me to pay at the time of the order, which they did, ran back to the table and had DS hand me my bag, and went back to the bar to pay for our meals. The food was ready fairly quickly and brought to our table. I ordered fish and chips with non-mushy peas and DS ordered a hamburger. My fish and chips were pretty good - better than the fish and chips that DS had a Bag o’Nails yesterday. DS was happy with her hamburger, stating that it tasted like a Jack in the Box burger. She’s 18, so Jack in the Box is good cooking to her. =)
We still had quite a bit of time before our show, so DS took another nap with her head on the table and I took out my Rick Steves book to make plans for tomorrow. After about an hour, I woke DS up and we headed over to Fortune Theatre where we were finally able to claim our tickets. It was an interesting show, but somewhat slow and not as scary as I had expected. The story was a bit Edgar Allan Poe-like to me, but I like Edgar Allan Poe, so that wasn’t an issue. What was an issue was that I started to doze off and missed the part just before intermission as well as some portions of the second half. I wanted to get something to snack on during intermission to keep me awake for the rest of the show, but the girl who was supposed to be selling snacks disappeared until just before the show started back up…and I’d given up on her by then. I’m not sure if I would recommend this show to anyone. I wasn’t all that impressed, but I’m not scared easily…and I did sleep through parts of it…so perhaps I am not the best judge. I think that it would probably be a better story by reading the book rather than by watching the show.
After the show, we went straight back to the hotel room, snacked on items from our breakfast basket again. I went down to the lobby and used the free computer with internet access for a little while, checked my e-mail, chatted with my husband, and looked up the weather forecast. Then headed back upstairs and read/watched television until I fell asleep…this time with the window shut!

mrkindallas

Day 4 – Tuesday, May 29 – London

The Tower of London was first on today’s itinerary with plans to get there early in hopes that Rick Steves and posters on Fodors would be right in their statements that if you get there early and go straight to the Crown Jewels, there will be no line. We took the subway again and joined everyone on their morning commutes to work. We let one train pass because it was so crowded and got on the next one that came a few minutes later. We stood on the crowded train and watched in amusement as nearly everyone on the train sat in their seats reading the same paper – apparently a free tabloid passed out at the Tube entrance. It felt kind of surreal – like we were part of a movie – or maybe a joke – where everyone did the exact same thing every morning, read the same thing at the same time, and went through some type of mechanical world. It was a “The Stepford Wives Go to Work” kind of world.
We exited the Tower Hill tube station and were awed at the first views of the Tower of London. It was easy to find our way to the ticket booths where we stood in short lines and handed over the 2-for-1 coupon when we reached the counter. This time it was refused since I couldn’t provide my train ticket or a receipt for the purchase. I explained that the turnstile ate the ticket and that I purchased the tickets from the automated machine and received no receipts, but that was not good enough for her. She refused the coupon and she charged full price for both tickets. I was upset about this and tried to argue with her over it, but it was no good. I had just enough cash on me to pay for one ticket to the Tower of London and two entrances to St. Paul’s Cathedral (our afternoon plans) and I wouldn’t need to get any more cash since we would be leaving London early the next morning. So, I decided to use my MasterCard debit card to purchase the tickets, but the transaction was denied. At that time, I assumed that it was because I did not have a Euro MasterCard with the electronic chip. So, I ended up paying cash, which made me short on money that I would later need for St. Paul’s Cathedral.
We entered the Tower of London after a bag check and set out to find the Crown Jewels. This place was larger than I expected and I felt lost for a while, but we did eventually come to the entrance for the Crown Jewels. We walked in and entered a room with large screens showing a coronation – I think of Queen Elizabeth II – taking place a Westminster Abbey. Even though there was no line in this room, we stopped to watch the mini show. It helped link our visit to the Tower of London today to our visit to Westminster Abbey yesterday. After the show completed, we walked through the twists and turns of the ropes set up to queue the crowds that had not yet shown up. We walked all the way through to the crown jewels without needing to stop and wait for a line at all. We took our time and looked at the displays leading up to the crown jewels. We got on the moving walkway for the crown jewels and went by them for our first look. At the same time, I was trying to read Rick Steves’ explanations of the jewels. We went back on the moving walkway behind the jewels for a second look. And then we went around again and again. I think we actually went by the front of the jewels three times.
Beyond the crown jewels were more display cases with expensive items owned by royalty: flask-like things for salts, service items for parties, such as an enormous wine bowl (at first I thought it was something used for baptisms because of the size) with an enormous ladle shaped like a shell. Interestingly, the ladle was not made until many years after the wine bowl, which made me wonder what they did prior to that ladle. The wine bowl was seriously so large that a small adult could bathe in it. The parties that thing must have been at!
After the crown jewels, we headed back toward the entrance of the Tower of London to wait for the next Beefeater tour. The tour was very interesting and our guide kept us interested and educated. I felt bad about not having any spare change to tip him after the tour, but I didn’t, so I didn’t.
After the beefeater tour, we visited the Bloody Tower and the White Tower, climbing up and down lots of old stone stairs. We took a break and had lunch at the Tower Café, which had good food although overpriced. Our lunch here cost £18.10. I had some type of chicken mushroom pot pie and DS had a bowl of spaghetti. The café was getting crowded and seats were all filling up, so we didn’t really linger so that someone else could have our seats.
Back outside, we find our way to small palace on the outer wall, which you have to walk through in order to get to the top of the wall facing the Thames for the best views of Tower Bridge. I take a picture of DS in front of Tower Bridge and look out toward the Thames taking in the view. This was an astounding view as you stand on one of the oldest walls in London with parts of the ancient building in your view, but with modern glass building right across the water in the same plane. It was a view of history and new – ancient architecture compared to new architecture – and framed in by the immense Tower Bridge and the wonders of its architecture just to the left of frame.
We finally exit the Tower of London and head out toward the bank of the Thames and take more pictures of the landscape. We review our maps to determine how to get to St. Paul’s Cathedral and begin our journey back to Tower Hill Tube station and make our way to St. Paul’s Cathedral. We looked for an ATM machine between the Tube exit and St. Paul’s Cathedral since I didn’t have enough cash for entrance for two to St. Paul’s, but we didn’t find one, so DS paid our entrance fees.
St. Paul’s was very impressive and we explored again based on Rick Steves’ recommendations. We reached the entrance to the stairs to climb the dome, showed our tickets, and entered the narrow spiraling stone stairwell. We climbed the 259 steps to the Whispering Gallery and DS went halfway around the dome to try out the acoustics. At first we did not realize that we needed to cup our hands to the wall in order to make it work, but after some trial and error, some sign language and pointing back and forth across the open vacancy of the dome and some more trial and error, we did eventually manage to whisper to each other from several yards away. The sound was incredible. As I was facing her and she whispered into the wall, I felt like I could see and hear the whisper traveling closer to me and go right past my ear. With everyone else up whispering to each other, it began to sound like we were in a haunted church and we were hearing ghosts – either that or the voices in our heads were getting very loud – a chill-bump causing feeling either way.
We went back to the stairwell and continued up the stone stairs. Another 119 steps brought us to The Stone Gallery which encircles the outside of the dome, providing great views of London. We saw the Millennium Bridge and the Globe Theatre in the background; a line a red double-decker buses below; and many other landmarks in the distance as well as many construction cranes hovering over the city. We decide to keep walking up to the next gallery – The Golden Gallery – at a total of 530 steps from where we started on the ground level. So, knowing we have another 152 steps to go, we step inside expecting to continue up the stone stairway that we’d become familiar with by now. Instead, we were encountered with a series of black metal spiral staircases that seemed to hover over nothingness. You could see through the steps and past your feet if you looked down and that made us dizzy and gave us a very uneasy feeling, so we refused to look down and made a determined, but slow climb to the top.
We reached the top and emerged from the top of the dome for an even grander view of London. We hugged the wall with our backs and stood there for a while looking out on the city. We forgot that we would be able to find a hole in the very top of the dome to look straight down to the floor of the cathedral and climbed all the way down before remembering. We weren’t climbing back up just for that and figured it was just as well anyway as it might have made our stomachs drop and made the climb down even more nerve-wracking than it already was. If I ever go back though, I’ll find that hole and look down to the cathedral floor. We finished wandering through the cathedral, took a short rest and decided to try dinner at The Black Friar (an old pub). We walked out of St. Paul’s and I immediately saw an ATM across the street, so I walked over to get out some more cash, figuring that whatever I have left over in GBPs after paying for dinner and our taxi in the morning could be converted to Euros in the morning.
We found our way to The Black Friar, chose seats and picked a couple of items off the menu. The menu looked very much like the menu that was at The Wellington the night before (the bug-infested restaurant that we ran from), but I didn’t see bugs here, so I went to the bar and ordered chili cheese nachos for DS and a Toad in the Hole for me. The Toad in the Hole wound up being sausage (again) with mashed potatoes and gravy (again), but served in Yorkshire Pudding. I did not know what Yorkshire Pudding was, but found it to be kind of a light bread that went well with the sausage and potatoes. I couldn’t finish my meal, but DS did. We used the restroom downstairs and then decided to start heading over to the Globe Theater for our evening production of Othello, hoping to see some souvenir shops on the way.
We had seen souvenir shops just about everywhere except now! Since we would be taking the Eurostar to Paris early tomorrow morning, this would be our last chance to pick up souvenirs in London. We walked at least a mile without seeing a single shop or stand and found ourselves at the entrance of the Globe Theater about an hour or so before the show. There was a souvenir shop here, but everything was related to Shakespeare and although we spent a good amount of time there, we just couldn’t find anything that we really wanted as souvenirs from London. DS did end up buying a book for her English teacher, but that purchase ended up being our only purchased souvenir from London. By this time, our feet are really in pain from all the walking and I know that we have “groundling” tickets, so I begin to worry about not seeing the entire show. I buy a bottle of water and go find a bench for us to sit on outside. DS lays her head on my shoulder and takes another short nap while we wait for the doors to open.
The doors finally open and we let the entire line go in ahead of us. We get up and go in and stand around waiting for the show to start. My feet are in so much pain that I am finding ways to stand on the edge of one foot at a time in order to give the other foot a short rest before alternating feet. I see DS doing something similar with her feet and she looks quite uncomfortable. The show finally starts and I am too tired to really follow what is going on and can think only of my aching feet, so after the first hour was just about over, I asked DS if she cared if we left. She didn’t, so we did. We walked out of the theatre and sat momentarily on a bench on the edge of the Thames watching the sunset and the changing colors of the sky. A homeless man rested on a bench across from us and we eventually decided that we were ready to get up and walk to the Tube station, hoping to see open souvenir stores on the way, but knowing it was unlikely at this late hour. We walked across the Millennium Bridge and I took a very colorful picture of the setting sun’s reflection off of the Tower Bridge in the distance. This ends up being one of my favorite pictures from London and is the wallpaper on my computer, so I am thankful for the beautiful sunset that we experienced, taking our minds off of our aching feet and the show that we just left early.
Finding no souvenir stores on the way to the Tube, we take the Tube back to Victoria thinking that maybe some of the stores there inside the train station sold souvenirs. First, we stopped at the ticket counters and turned in our Oyster cards, getting back our £3 deposits and getting back about £6 each in unused fares, for a total of about £18 in cash. We looked around and didn’t see anything other than food stands and grocery stores, took a different exit out of the station that we were used to and walked another way to the hotel, but still nowhere to stop for souvenirs. At this point I figure that if there had been something that I really wanted that I would have purchased it when I saw it and I didn’t come across anything that I really wanted that I didn’t think I would be better off buying online later, so I didn’t mind leaving London without souvenirs. I’m sure I’ll be back someday anyway.
We reach the hotel, I use the free computer in the lobby for a little while to chat with my husband and check the weather forecast for Paris. Then I go up to the room, pack and get my first good night’s rest.

mrkindallas

Upcoming...5 days in Paris....As soon as I get a moment to capture those memories.

mrkindallas

Shoot...just saw an error on Day 2..."nothing but showers" should be nothing but toilets.

Dukey

Very detailed report. Paragraphs would be appreciated..makes it a LOT easier to read.

Toucan2

M, I saw where you are creating this in Word and that you said your formatting is not coming across. But, once you paste it in here, if you Preview your reply you will then have the option to select Edit, then you can go in and do the paragraphs.

I'm enjoying your trip report very much, but it would be so much easier to read with paragraphs. Please don't take as a criticism, only I hope a helpful note given in good spirit.

PatrickLondon

Sorry about your bad experiences - and the weather, which was really wretched that weekend, I remember. We had May in April, so we just had to have April in May to compensate. I hope you come back (but you haven't missed anything by not having mushy peas - it's a puree of marrowfat peas, which are large and old and VILE).

klondike

Wow, those must be some bad peas if even a local says so!

Can hardly wait for the rest of the report. Paris (sigh)!

SandyBrit

mrkindallas:

Always interesting to hear how things worked out. I have taken that same 5:00 o'clock flight out of Dallas and thought you did rather well catching 5 hours sleep. Not sure that I would do the shower at Gatwick but it worked out for you.

Train: Unless the rules have changes you could purchase your ticket on-line, at the station or on the train. Can any one else confirm either way.

Looking forward to more and as others have said hope you can work out how to post with paragraphs. So much easier to read.

Thanks for sharing your trip.

Sandy

janisj

to get paragraphs you need to double return instead of just the one return.
Clicking return once will look like this . . . . .

__________________________________________________ _____

to get paragraphs you need to double return instead of just the one return.

Clicking return twice will look like this . . . . .

janisj

meant to add - if you are pasting this from Word it is easier to preview and then add the returns in edit..

LCBoniti

Really enjoying your adventures in London and looking forward to Paris.

flanneruk

SandyBrit:

You may not buy tickets on trains from Gatwick EXCEPT on the Gatwick Express.

Or rather, you can buy tickets on Thameslink, Southern etc but the rules say you'll pay a penalty. Ordinarily this rule is enforced (fare dodging in SE England is a serious cost for the train operators): whether they enforce it for obvious newly-arrived visitors on the train from Gatwick I honestly don't know. My suspicion is they have to: how do you enforce the penalty on a group of fare dodging Londoners if you're letting the New Yorker next to them off?

PatrickLondon

>>Wow, those must be some bad peas if even a local says so!<<

Well, some people like mushy peas, but it's an acquired taste. I love the standard frozen garden peas and really fresh raw ones. Not catering standard marrowfats.

SandyBrit

flanneruk - thanks for clearing the train ticket question up.

Sandy

Nikki

I'm enjoying your report, looking forward to Paris.

Could somebody please define marrowfat?

PatrickLondon

I have no idea why it's a name given to a type of pea, but it is:

http://www.wherryandsons.com/food_products/marrow.html

MissPrism

I love mushy peas and I have an American friend who loves them too.
We consider them a plebeian and slightly guilty pleasure.
I'm amused that the OP and her sister are such unadventurous eaters.
They might have enjoyed some of those strange sandwiches and exotic flavoured crisps.