More traipsing the streets of London

Here's a cheery song.

I like it.

On Wednesday. we took a Big Bus Tour, in order to see the most amount of stuff in the least amount of time. 

And I was still suffering from a mysterious stomach disorder, so walking was not my best thing.

These images are the result. Only problem is, I've forgotten the significance of most of them.

This one, we were told, is the oldest clock in London, but I just Googled it and it is not. So the tour guide must have been lying.

There is lots of building and renovation going on in the city and the structures are always gift-wrapped. 

This was as close as we got to St. Paul's. Entrance fees and tourist overload took their toll.

Crossing Tower Bridge. This is often mistakenly called London Bridge, which is the next bridge upstream.

The Tower of London.

We passed on touring this too.

Believe me, you have to pick your poison when you're in this city.

We took a short river cruise instead, seeing as how it was included in the bus tour.

Then a stop at Harrods, to marvel at the prices and selection and not buy anything.
Twenty-five dollars for a pineapple?
I don't think so, Mr. Harrod!

I didn't see the sign on the chocolate display case until it was too late.

Please do not photograph these displays.

So sad, too bad.

Drool on, ladies.

Prices run around $80 to $100 a pound.

Harrods is famous for window dressings. They were almost impossible to photograph, because of the glare, but you can see this spooky one pretty well.
She had deer antlers on her head.

We were hurrying over to catch the river cruise a second time before it ended for the day when we got caught up in this.

And if you know us at all, you know that we never made it to the river cruise.

We stood with Israel for about an hour.

I tried to claim a flag when we left, but was denied.

Which is funny, when you think about it!

There was a similar group supporting Palestine on the next block, so the Bobbies were everywhere.
One of the Israelis got beat up after a similar demonstration a few weeks ago.

We had wondered why all the police vans were parked in the middle of the street, and then we understood.

This is the scariest thing we saw in London.

Even scarier than the Jack the Ripper tour.

This person (one day there were two of them, competing for tourist coins) stands on Westminster Bridge and dances to music from a boombox, enticing tourists to have their photo taken with her/him/it.

The mask is supposed to be Queen Elizabeth, I think, but it is icky.

I'm sparing you the enlarged version.

Mwahaha!

If only they knew!

Jeff had been looking forward to his Jack the Ripper tour at twilight. Me, not so enthused considering the state of my bowels, but I went along. We started by Victoria Station and this section of Roman wall, which is almost two thousand years old.

It started drizzling, so after completing the 90-minute walking tour I insisted on refreshment.

We settled on a lime milkshake from Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which, it turns out, is owned by three Kiwis.

Jeff declined to try the Kiwiburger, which had all his favourite things on one bun.

Beetroot.

Eggs.

Pineapple.

'Nuff said!

The milkshake?

It was incomparably delicious.

I want another one.

And then we caught the train and walked home in the drizzling rain.

Incidental images from the London archives

These photos were all taken on Tuesday.

This line of phone boxes is in Westminster. I think they are just there for tourists to use in their photos, because no one ever uses them to make phone calls! Note the line of double-deckers on the right, balancing nicely with the red booths on the left.

I cannot comment on this. This is a g-rated blog.

The Churchill War Rooms are enthralling. You get a small taste of what it must have been like to live underground in these halls and be so intimately involved with Churchill and his War Cabinet.

An actual chart that details the number of casualties from doodlebug bombs that were dropped by the Germans. My Mum hated these bombs.

I could easily subscribe to this way of thinking!

The squirrels at St. James Park are very friendly, especially when your husband fools them into thinking that pocket fuzz is food.

At first, we thought that this was Nelson's Column.

But when we got to Trafalgar Square, we realized we had been mistaken.

Trafalgar Square was a different animal than I remember.
No pigeons.

We were walking past this policeman and I said, jokingly, Smile!
And he did.

Walking around St. James Park. 

Poor wee thing. What's a squirrel without a big, bushy, tail? 

Buckingham Palace. Can't go to London without seeing it. But no, we did not pay the entrance fee.

Over 10,000 of these CCTV cameras are all over London, although they are of dubious efficacy in the solving of crime.

I just like this one.

At the end of the day, we went to see Faustus at the Globe Theatre. This was our seat, in the highest gallery.

Looking down on the student crush.

A small medieval band sat on the top level. I loved the layer of interest that it added to the plot of the play. They played sound effects as well as music for the several times that the cast broke out into a song and dance. 

The theatre was packed, but you could have heard a pin drop. The audience was spellbound for the entire length of the play. I even forgot how uncomfortable my seat was.

After the play, we walked over the Millennium Bridge to the railway station. It was raining a fine mist that turned into a steady drizzle by the time we reached East Finchley, but it was a perfect day.

Feeling a little loo-pee right now

Musings on the tube

There's something about the tube that fascinates me. Did you get that? For one thing, most of the stations are not accessible for the disabled. The transit authority is in the process of updating their facilities, but it is a huge job. Jeff and I had to haul all our heavy bags up and down several flights of stairs upon arriving in and leaving London. I was cursing them the whole time, especially after Jeff broke the wheels of one of his bags as he bounced it up the steps. In fact, when we arrived in East Finchley and I was verbally anticipating the long descent, one of the station bosses heard me.  He very nicely carried my bags all the way down to the ground. These Londoners are so polite.
But the stations with escalators. Oh man, the architecture astounds me. It is Escher-esque. I feel like I'm in the middle of Labrynth when I ride them. Gnome King, where are you?

See what I mean?

And then I get vertigo as we ascend, the flights are so long and the structural patterns so disorienting.

But enough of the underground.

A funny (funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha) story.
We flew Iceland Air, so had a stopover in Keflavik. The first leg was uneventful, if long. Seven hours. The plane was packed. Iceland is an unusual country. It has slightly more than 300,000 residents and more than half of them live in Reykjavic, the capital city. Approaching it from the air is weird, as most of the country is flat and covered in what looks like tundra, with a few illuminated towns scattered on the landscape. 


The second leg was thankfully only about two-and-a-half hours. I say "thankfully" because there was a woman in the seat across the aisle from us who proceeded to have a very loud and opinionated conversation with her seatmate. She hardly paused for breath and her gravelly nicotine-voice and laugh permeated every second of the flight. 


As we stood in the shuttle bus at Heathrow, I said to Jeff, I think I will scream if I have to listen to that woman for one more minute. There was a young couple standing next to us and she turned to me and said, Yes! Thank you, I feel very validated. They had been sitting right in front of her, which I cannot even imagine. We agreed that people like her give Americans a bad name and they probably romp through life having absolutely no idea of the effect they have on everyone else. 


A little thought danced daintily in and out of my head that perhaps the young couple were Mormons. I chased it out immediately, having nothing on which to base the assumption. Then, after all the passport rigmarole, I needed to find a toilet, as usual, and there was the girl, waiting for her husband. She was still there, talking to Jeff, when I came out, and I saw that she was wearing a BYU sweatshirt. She had been facing away from me before so I hadn't noticed it.
How weird was that?


The London weight-loss plan.
1. Have a bad case of dysentery for two days.
2. Don't eat much because food is so expensive. 
Seriously. A small ice cream cone is two pounds. That's four dollars. A pastry is two or three pounds.


But two excellent things.


First excellent thing: I know where all the good toilets are to be found in Westminster and the surrounding environs.


A couple of toilet tips.
1. Don't pay 50p to pee.

2. Find a nice hotel close by, saunter in and pretend like you're supposed to be there. Somewhere close to the entrance will be a top-notch toilet.

Yes, I know, Novotel isn't a Very Nice Hotel, but it was my first attempt. I got better. The next night I sauntered into a very swanky hotel and totally got away with it.

Oh, and Harrods has Luxury Toilets. Which means that there is a large lady attendant who says "Thank you Modom" when you leave her a tip in the little silver tray. Which I didn't mind doing because there was free rose-scented hand cream and expensive perfumes by the wash basin.

Second excellent thing: we found this lovely pub just down the road from Trafalgar Square. 
The Lord Moon on the Mall.

For a semi-reasonable price you can get a filling meal with lots of peas.

Only Jeff hates peas with a passion, so they subbed a very tasty salad for the peas.

He was happy with his bangers and mash.

And I?

I got steak and kidney pudding.

Oh my.

I was in heaven.

Although I picked the kidneys out, like usual.

It tasted like manna from heaven.

Only, maybe it was just because we were so hungry, because the next day we went back and it was only average.

And then we went lots more fun places, but I need to go to bed so I'll tell you about it later. 

You could hit the "like" button if you got all the way to the end!

Photos from Day One

Our beautiful bed where we spent three nights in East Finchley, London.

It's the details that count.

The view from our window.
How many kinds of sweet flowers grow
In an English country garden?

We ignored jet lag on the first day and took the tube into Westminster.
Big Ben rules the skyline.

Did you know that Big Ben is actually the name of the bell that chimes every hour, on the hour? The structure is officially called the Clock Tower. The hour hand is 9 feet long, the minute hand is 14 feet long. 

The Clock Tower is part of the Houses of Parliament, or the Palace of Westminster, as it is also known. There are no adjectives to describe this view.

The mind-blowing thing is that every time you turn a corner in London, you see something like this.

Security is tight, but, strangely, not as ominous as when I was here with Bethany in the 90's and the IRA  was still a threat.

This enormous ferris wheel is called the Eye of London.
We wandered over the river to take a look and possibly ride it.
The fare was about $30 each so we opted for visiting the sights instead of viewing them from above.
Yes, I am as cheap as ever.

This is on the Thames River Walk and was built to commemorate the emancipation of slaves.

There are a crazy number of cyclists in London and they are crazy too. There are few bike lanes and they zip right along with the cars. We saw more than one woman in a skirt and high heels, commuting from work. About ten cyclists die a year on London roads and many more are injured.

The Houses of Parliament are an imposing view from the other side of the Thames too.

We wandered into a courtyard at the Marriott and this sign made me laugh.
And then we went back to East Finchley and couldn't sleep because we were over-tired.
The end.