London: Day Four

Today was the day that Holly booked tickets for the Tower of London, only to discover afterwards that they were actually vouchers for vouchers for tickets.  So, we took the toob down to Victoria Station to find the Golden Tours office so that we could redeem our vouchers for another voucher that would let us in the Tower.

Going to Victoria station was useful though, as we have to catch the train to Gatwick airport there on Saturday morning.  We scouted out the ticket booths for our Saturday train, then headed to the tours office.

We were third in line, but it took us about 20 minutes to talk to the staff at Golden Tours, there were two couples ahead of us attempting to book tours with incomplete information.  Note to people standing in front of me in line: Decide how many of you are going to go on a tour before getting in line, or, be able to make that decision in under 5 minutes.

We eventually got our vouchers, and then walked north to Buckingham Palace in time to see the changing of the guard.  This is very touristy, and there are literally thousands of other tourists crowding the place attempting to see the same thing, so we just stayed clear of the crowds and watched from afar.

We then walked north through Green Park, and caught the tube to Oxford Circus, as we'd been invited to Katrine's flat for lunch.  We were a bit early, so we milled around in the Oxford Circus Niketown for a bit, then walked to her place, still arriving a half-hour early.

We waited on the steps outside her building, and she turned up in a few minutes, with her arms full of the groceries she was going to turn into lunch for us.  She made us some excellent pitas, with many options for filling them.  Chicken, tuna, corn, lettuce, peppers, cheese, and a choice of dressings were all available, and Holly and I each stuffed ourselves on two pitas, then topped it off with a piece of carrot cake.

We also met Katrine's flatmate Robin, who quickly left to take an exam in his developmental psychology course.

After giving our food a bit of time to digest, Holly and I left Katrine's flat and set out for the Tower of London.  The Tower is rather expensive to visit, but we felt that it was worth the expense, but just barely.  It's rather touristy, but we arrived at the end of the day, so most of the crowd had dispersed.  Plan on needing 2-3 hours to see the whole Tower, especially if you want to take one of the tours from the Yeoman Warders (also known as Beefeaters).  We admired the ravens that are kept on the Tower grounds, then hiked up and down through the medieval towers, viewing various places people were imprisoned or beheadded, as well as the Crown Jewels of England.  The jewels were impressive, and the size of some of them is staggering.

We finished touring everything just as the tower closed for the evening, and we decided to take a boat west on the Thames, as we hadn't yet cruised this river, and it was only a little over 2 pounds each to do so.

As Holly was getting out my Nikon digital camera to take my picture in front of Tower Bridge, it dropped from her hand onto the cobblestones, which evoked a muffled cry from me.  She's been using my old 3.2 megapixel Canon digicam for the last 2 years, and the 5.1 megapixel Nikon has been "mine".  The Canon started having issues in France, so I let Holly use the Nikon, while I used my camcorder for everything.

Holly quickly picked up the Nikon, and it powered on and worked fine, though the corner of the case bears a nasty dent that has caused the metal case to pop outwards from the camera.  The case appears to unscrew, however, so I think I'll be able to bend it enough back that it will be flush again, and it'll just have a battle scar from our European trip.  Breaking both of our cameras in one trip would have been very disappointing, and replacing a camera in Britain would have been pretty painful with the current exchange rate.

Satisfied that the Nikon remained fully functional, we then boarded a boat east to the Savoy pier, though we didn't see as much along the river as we did in Paris, as this wasn't a dedicated sight-seeing boat like the other one.

After catching the tube back to our hotel, we rested for a bit, while Holly tried to find the nearest Pizza Hut, as we were both hungry for some good pan pizza.  She eventually located one a few blocks west of us in the arab neighborhood, and we walked down there to get a pizza to bring back to our hotel.

While eating, we watched a program called "Embarassing Illnesses" which was rather funny, though disgusting at times.  Holly didn't really enjoy the full-frame shot of one patients hemorrhoids, or another man's impressive athlete's foot infection.  They can show quite a bit more nudity on TV in the UK than they can in the US, though in this case, most of what you saw were things you would rather do without.  Holly noticed that the show was narrated by Ashley Jensen, an actress who we both enjoy quite a bit, along with Ricky Gervais, in the BBC/HBO show Extras.

London: Day Three

Still full from our late dinner the night before, we skipped breakfast, and caught the tube to Westminster.  We strolled around gawking at Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey.  Admission to the Abbey was 10 pounds per person, and we decided that we didn't feel like spending $40 to see the inside of another church.  Parliament and Big Ben are even more ornate than they appear to be in any picture or TV shot you've seen of them, but gothic architecture isn't really our thing.

We walked along the Thames for a bit, and decided that it has to be about the filthiest river we've ever seen, as there was a lot of floating debris and even an oil slick visible from the shore.

There was a lot of media around Parliament, as there were discussions going on there about the missing British toddler in Portugal, and I think some of the girl's family members were there to appeal to Parliament for help.  It has been two weeks since the girl went missing, but it's still on the front page of the tabloids here every day, and is practically all the news is covering each night, not that there's anything to actually report, but that doesn't stop them from wasting hours not-reporting it.

We decided to walk to Trafalgar square, where we stopped in for lunch at Little Frankie's, which is sort of a 1940's-themed American Italian restauraunt.  I had their two-course lunch special, with some really good Neapolitan garlic bread, and an angus cheeseburger & fries.  Holly had Lasagna.  The garlic bread was interesting, it sort of had smears of tomato paste on it to give it the stripes of color, so it was half-way to a pizza.

We then sat for a while in Trafalgar square, and people-watched, then explored a little more in the general direction of Picadilly Circus.  Picadilly is a total tourist trap, very crowded, and tons of people hawking souvenirs and discount theatre tickets.  Even with the discount, the theatre tickets were outside what we wanted to spend, thanks to the weak dollar, though we did think about attempting to see Spiderman 3 again at the theatre there, as the weather was becoming a bit wet.

A quick glance at the prices told me that we'd wait to see the movie when we got home.  The cheapest movie ticket was twelve and a half pounds.  For the two of us to watch the movie would have been $50!  I think I'll catch the matinee in Iowa on Sunday for $5.50 per person instead.  We'd planned on going to Hyde Park, but the rain convinced us to just return to our hotel and relax for the afternoon, which we did.  Going on vacation can get tiring.

I went down to the lobby for a bit to post some blog entries that I'd accumulated over the past few days, as that's where they have wireless internet.  Then we set off in search of something to eat.  Our hotel is in an Arab neighborhood, so it was very interesting to walk a few blocks to find dinner.  There are many stores serving arab food, but we passed all of those, as Holly was intent on finding a Subway store she'd seen a few days before.  We got a couple sandwiches, then stopped by a Baskin Robbins on the way back to the hotel for a cup of ice cream.

Baskin Robbins is something we actually can't get at home, as they closed the store in the Cedar Falls mall a few years ago, and put in a crappy frozen yogurt shop instead.  We ate our ice cream while walking back to the hotel, but the scents of incense and hookah smoke coming from the arab shops added interesting flavors to our dessert.

London: Day Two

Having gotten to bed somewhat late the night before, we had to drag ourselves out of bed in time to catch the tube down near the Thames in order to make our apointment with the London Eye.  Holly pre-ordered our tickets from the US before we left, so all we had to do was walk up to the machines for pre-paid tickets and swipe the same credit card in order for the tickets to print.  Pre-paying everything you can in the U.S. will let you pay with dollars instead of pounds, and you can avoid the fees that your credit card company may charge for currency conversion.

The London Eye is a giant ferris wheel that never stops, and each car is big enough to hold about 20 people.  It takes about half an hour to complete a revolution of the wheel, and while it's not a thrilling ride, it does give you a nice view of the city, and helps you establish the layout in your mind before setting off to visit the rest of London.

After the Eye, we caught the Tube to the British Museum, which was the only other thing on our Tuesday agenda.  We ducked into a Starbucks near the museum to grab a quick breakfast, and discovered that the pre-paid Starbucks cards we'd been given for Christmas in the US also worked in Britain. 

In the museum, we opted to rent a couple of the audio tour headsets, which were well worth the few pounds they cost, as they provided much more insight into the 60 exhibits they covered, and told you a great many things that weren't on the placards.

The first thing we saw was the Rosetta Stone, followed by the rest of the Egyptian, then Greek, Roman, Assyrian, and other ancient artifacts.  After about three hours of touring, we stopped by the cafeteria to split a croissant and some cheesecake for lunch. Most of the east wing of the museum was closed, but after five hours of wandering the rest of it, Holly's hip, and my feet had seen more than enough.

The quality of the artifacts at the British Museum blows everything else away, as the sheer size of their exhibits dwarfs everything else we've ever seen.  Many places have pieces of Egyptian artifacts, but most of them aren't of near the size or quality of the ones you'll find here.

Around 5, our tired feet drug us back to the tube, and we stopped in the Mark & Spencer store across from our hotel to grab some sandwiches to eat in our hotel room for supper.

London: Day One

After reaching the main part of the station, we headed for the ticket office to pick up our passes for the London Underground.  Holly had pre-paid for our passes before we left the US, and she had vouchers to turn in here to get the passes.  Just as we reached the front of the ticket queue, I noticed a screen that said that pre-paid tickets were to be collected in the next office over, so we went over there, but that turned out not to include our pre-paid tickets, which were back in the original room, so Holly went to stand in line again while I got left to watch the luggage.

After she returned with our passes, we set about finding some lunch.  The station had only fast food so opted for some Burger King, then used the Waterloo "loo" which cost us 20 pence each. 

We then navigated to Paddington station via the Bakerloo line, where we changed to the Circle line to take us to the Edware Road stop right by our hotel, the Hilton London Metropole.

The hotel is very large, and the lobby is like the UN, with people from every crner of the earth working and lounging there.  We checked in, having pre-paid for our room via Hotwire.com, where I saved a small fortune versus using a conventional site.

We finally got a hotel room with a King-sized bed, and though it has a not-so-lovely view of the antennas and air conditioners on the next building over, I can't complain for the price we paid.

We dropped our bags down, then set off for Herrod's, via the Underground.  The store was jam-packed with other tourists, and a glance at the prices told us we wouldn't be buying much.  The exchange rate has rendered us rather poor here, as it's over 2 dollars to the pound at the time I write this.  Most food-stuffs in London are priced as they wouuld be in dollars, so effectively, everything is at least twice the price as it would be in the U.S.  For instance, at Burger King, my whopper meal was 5.5 pounds, or 11 dollars.  Needless to say, we won't be dining out at any fancy restaurants while we're here.

Herrod's is filled with all sorts of things you've never seen, or considered buying, like a $600 Burberry scarf, or a pair of identical siamese kittens for $3000.  At least the 2:1 exchange rate makes it easy to calculate how bad you're being ripped off for everything you buy.

We spent about 2 hours walking through the massive store, which is the fanciest store I've ever been in, by far.  If Wal-Mart stores were appointed that nicely, I might actually shop in them too.  All we bought were some cat treats, and a chocolate bar, both of which were reasonably priced.  The owner, Mohammed Al-Fayed, passed by us with his passal of security people, as we were walking through the food hall.

We caught the tube back to our hotel in time to meet Katrine, the Danish girl that I met in St. Petersburg, Russia two and a half years ago.  She's getting a graduate degree here in London now. Holly and I walked to a pub near Oxford Circus with her, and after a pint of cider for me, and a Coke for Holly, we found an Italian restaurant for dinner.  I started with some bruschetta, which had an absurd amount of tomatoes on it, and followed it with a ham and pepper foccacia sandwich.  Holly had some ravioli in butter sauce, which she said was good, though a bit too much butter.  After a few hours of chit-chat, we said goodbye to Katrine, and caught the tube back to our hotel, where we fell asleep immediately.

Leaving Paris

I awoke around 7:00, showered, and began packing my things to leave Paris.  Holly got up and joined me, and we checked out of the hotel and entered the metro station right outside its doors.  One stop later, at the Gare du Nord, we redeemed our ticket vouchers for our actual Eurostar tickets, and then checked in for our 11:13 a.m. train.

We then went through French passport control, had to fill out immigration cards for the UK passport control (which is done in France, which is a bit odd).  The 10:00 train was boarding, and I was a bit confused as to where we boarded the 11:00, so I showed my ticket to a Eurostar agent who told me we would board in the same place in about 50 minutes.

Holly got herself a croissant and a coke for breakfast, and then sat with the bags while I bought a chocolat au pain and a grille aux pommes, plus an orange juice.  Both bread products were tasty, though the chocolat au pain was the better of the two.  I had a few Euros in coins in my pocket, and spent those on a hot chocolate and a croissant a bit later to eat as an early lunch, as we'd be on the train then.

Somewhere along here, I somehow stupidly managed to lose our tickets.  I don't know how, or where.  I don't know if I did it when paying for Holly's food, or if I threw them out along with the paper sacks that contained my food, or exactly what happened, but when we went to depart, they were gone, and no amount of stressful digging in my pockets or bags produced them.

At this point, my blood pressure skyrocketed, and I sought the help of the same woman who I'd shown the tickets to earlier.  I remembered our coach and seat numbers, but she couldn't let us board without the tickets, and said that they wouldn't have time to re-issue them to us, and for us to go back through passport control to make the 11:13 train.

I frantically searched some more, to no avail, and then she was nice enough to walk us all the way back out through the check-in gates, and take us to the first class ticket office, where they were able to issue us new tickets for a 23 euro charge.  At that point, i was glad to pay the 23 euros, as I was sick to my stomach at the thought of shelling out $200+ for two new tickets due to my carelessness.  The agent explained our situation to the counter agent, and shepherded us through the whole process, which was very kind of her.

We then went through passport control again for France and the UK, and they stamped our passports again, not even noticing that they'd just been stamped less than an hour before, and soon we were back waiting for the train again, this time the 12:19, and Holly kept track of her own ticket, as she (rightfully) wasn't going to trust me with hers again.

At noon we boarded the train, and found that we had seats in the center of the coach, and that the seats facing us had no occupants, so I hopped in one of those, so we can actually face each other for the trip.  A young british woman with her baby were sitting behind us, and she asked if they could join us, as the seats in the center of the car had a bid more room for her fidgity toddler to squirm around in.

The Eurostar train moves pretty fast, and as I was facing backwards to the motion of the train, I started to get a bit motion-sick, as did Holly, who was facing forwards.  She retrieved some motion-sickness pills from her luggage, and bought a bottle of water to wash them down with.

After an hour and a half of chugging along the French countryside, we entered the Chunnel, to spend half an hour in darkness before emerging in Britain.

The architecture change was apparent as soon as we exited the Chunnel, and I noticed the cars now driving on the left side.  After another 45 minutes or so, we reached Waterloo station, and disembarked in London.