| SCOTLAND VACATION 2004 May 18 - May 30, 2004 JOURNAL ENTRY 2 entry begun on May 20th, 2004 at 05:30 London Time Sadly, the plane ride did not provide us with much sleep. I got tired enough to try, but every time I was just about to drift off, the same kid would cough loudly followed up by some nearby passenger farting in my general direction. So I ended up watching Panic Room, Monster, My Cousin Vinny, and a bunch of television shows including a Discovery Channel piece about the creation and history of the city of London. Once we got off the airplane, things went fairly smoothly. The concourses we had to walk through were unbelievably long, but we pretty much got right through customs, got our bag reclaimed from the luggage carousel with no hassle, repacked our bags so as to redistribute the weight a bit, and went off in search of the Heathrow Terminal 4 Underground Station. We found the place that acted as a gift shop for all things Underground (the Underground is the subway system in London, FYI) as well as the place where we were to pick up our 3-day passes. We spent a bit of time considering some of the gifts, then boarded the train bound for Earl's Court (where our bed and breakfast was) on the Piccadilly Line. The tube was somewhat turbulent, more so than the plane had been, and coupling that with the fact that our brains were fairly scrambled and our bodies were getting quite exhausted from being awake over 24 hours, our first experience on "the Tube" could have been under better circumstances. The Earl's Court station was extremely close to our bed and breakfast the "Rushmore", so once we were off the tube it was easy to get our room and drop our bags off. Check-in at the Rushmore went smoothly. A quite nice lady helped us (she sounded like she may have been French), and seemed like a good potential resource should we have any questions. Have I mentioned the heat yet? It is of course a bit humid here in London, but it honestly must have gotten up close to 80 yesterday! We did not pack with the mindset of spending several 80 degree days here. Hopefully it will cool off a bit today. (We're currently on the tube heading for Piccadilly Circus to find a coffee shop, so the writing may be a bit jittery from time to time.) I forgot to mention our nice seatmate on the plane. The aisle seat in our little section was used by a nice lady from Birmingham returning to England from a visit with her relatives in California. She was not put out at all when we wanted to get up and stretch or whatever, and sometimes joined us. Hope we luck out on our flight back as well. (editor's note: we didn't) It is true what they say, by the way. No one talks on the tube much, and in fact the only noise other than the trains is the crinkling of newspapers and bags of crisps. After check-in, we dropped our bags off in our room, I switched into a tee-shirt, and we went out to explore our immediate surroundings. Up Earl's Court Road a bit we tried calling Cousin Mick from a couple of different booths with no luck. There was an internet café charging 50 pence (50p) for a half an hour, so we went and sent e-mails off telling of our successful arrival. A nice lady (this trip seems filled with nice ladies, doesn't it) went for a smoke break and let me use her computer while she was gone. So, I checked my e-mail and made a quick post at my blog. Once we'd finished geeking out London-style, it was time for a bite to eat. After some deliberation, it was decided we'd try Star Kebab House. What a good decision! They had a deal made up of a large kebab, chips (french fries in the UK), and a soft drink for £4.25. The kebab was a pita stuffed with delicious, high quality chicken, cabbage, lettuce, cucumber, and carrots. The chips were plump, crisp on the outside, and well salted. Perhaps most pleasing and surprising was the Diet Coke there. The called it Coca Cola Light, and though it was in fact labeled as having just one calorie, it tasted almost exactly like regular Coke. I, in fact, don't think I could tell the difference in a blind taste test. I have seen Diet Coke and Coca Cola Light all over here since then, as two distinct products. I have not, however, seen any Coca Cola Light that didn't have its label completely written in German, right down to the ingredients and the bottling location. After our meal (tea I suppose, since we had it at about four in the afternoon), we went back to the room for a bit to figure out our next move. Managing not to fall asleep in the process, we went to the Earl's Court tube station to attempt to grab the Piccadilly Line east to Piccadilly Circus. After a few minutes on the platform, the announcer told us there wouldn't be any eastbound Piccadilly Line trains for a while (a breakdown of some sort had occurred), so we instead found a red double-decker bus and jumped on, thinking we'd head to Knightsbridge and see Harrods department store. Here's a tip though; to get to Harrods from Earl's Court, you want to not take the bus heading in the direction of Putney. It was a nice ride, don't get me wrong, but it was in the wrong direction. Once we'd taken the 74 bus back the proper way, we managed eventually to get to Harrods. It was 6:20 at the time, and since it closed at 7 there wasn't a lot of lollygagging. We went to the toy floor and found a cute Paddington Bear for Matthew, and looked about a bit, but that was about it. A nice lady (Nice Lady #4, for those of you playing along at home) gave me a big cup of water at Starbucks. Water and trash cans are not as easily available here as they are in Phoenix. I meant to mention before that at the Star Kebab House Ginger ordered a small version of the kebab I had, as well as some sort of fried balls of falafel, egg, spinach, and salt (which she shared with other patrons once she'd had her fill). After Harrods we had planned to take the bus back to Earl's Court and retire for the night, but we had a taste for dessert, so we started walking back and figured we'd stop somewhere, get some ice cream or something, and then take the bus back the rest of the way. Our ice cream ended up being strawberry shakes at the McDonalds just past the bus stop we'd get off at to get to our hotel. Part of the plan was to get ice for the gin and tonic Ginger had saved from our flight (the bed and breakfast had no ice), but it was mostly melted from the ridiculously warm London weather by the time we'd gotten it to our room. Once back at the room, we showered (finally!) and tried making our plans for the next day. Making those plans ended up having to wait, though, as we both seemed to suddenly realize we'd been awake for the vast majority of the past 32 hours. I took some Tylenol PM to combat my aches and the stiffness of the bed, and off to slumber we went. IMAGES FROM JOURNAL ENTRY 2 ---> |