So schedule-wise, our travel (two flights and a ride on the Underground) into London was uneventful. Our slight delay taking off from JFK was basically made up by the time we arrived at Heathrow. Of course, it wasn’t twenty minutes (okay, maybe less) before I was having slight panics wondering where my Blackberry was (it was just where I’d left it…on purpose…at home). That remains perhaps my biggest adjustment on this trip so far!
At any rate the flight were fine. Tight seating BWI to JFK, and less sleep than we’d hoped JFK to Heathrow. Indeed, though Chris was doing okay, that first day in London was rough for me. It was good we kept moving (see below). Otherwise, I’d have fallen asleep at 2 pm!
The small amount of sleep was due in part to a cheery, but chatty little girl sitting with her parents just near us (her mother’s noise reducing headphones merely made it worse for everyone else). Sitting up, and not having gotten to move around much earlier didn’t help either, but we did manage to get a couple hours of sleep before they woke us up and we landed, breezed through customs (we still don’t know if the customs officer was actually interested in whether we have kids or just making sure we had our story straight).
The Tube trip into Paddington Station was similarly uneventful, and we had our week-long travel passes (only the ones bought from National Rail offices get us these great 2-for-1 deals they have going on now) and lunch before noon (we’d landed just after 9 am). We managed to find our hotel easily, only to discover that as small as we thought the room would be, it was all that and more (or less). But then again, that’s what we’ve figured. So far it’s been comfortable, clean, and the price is certainly good.
We checked into out room early, and our better judgment won out over our fatigue as we ventured out to look around (and keep ourselves awake!).
Chris had already gotten quite familiar with the area around our hotel thanks to maps, and at his suggestion, we made our way to Hyde Park, and walk along the lake, across a couple roads and found ourselves right in front of Buckingham Palace. The intermittent drizzles put a damper on the ceremonial tone of the place, I suppose, but we did get to see the guard open a gate for a car that came racing in (then swiftly inside/underground so we never saw who) and an empty horse and buggy (of course with drivers) pull into the palace gates, up to a door, and a “random” guy get in and get carried away outside the gates. I’m not sure if this is a common occurrence at the palace, but I think we ought to make sure the White House has a similarly random but awesome mode of transportation available. Can’t you see it now? An ostrich-pulled chariot whisking the House Majority leader back to the office or something?
We wandered further along, past trainees practicing marching at the barracks beside Buckingham Palace, up towards Westminter Abbey, and down into the basement of the Methodist Centre for their café—we may have only had a diet Pepsi, but hey, it was a Methodist one!
By that point, Westminster Abbey was not too far from closing, so we put off a visit inside, and wandered past Big Ben and the House of Parliament, along the Thames, and back to Paddington on the Underground. We had high hopes for a pub near our hotel, since it was pretty busy each time we’d passed it. Sadly, we discovered after receiving our food that the place’s popularity was driven not by good food but rather inexpensive alcohol!
By the time we made it back to our hotel, it was all I could do to stay awake long enough to get things ready for the next day, and aside from a brief fire alarm about midnight (apparently something to do with the guy next to us using the shower and the steam setting it off) we got a much better sleep than we’d anticipated, and woke up ready to meet our second day in London!
No comments:
Post a Comment