Lou Ann's EuroBlog

"All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope."
- Sir Winston Churchill

Hey, y'all! This time I will actually be talking about the place where I currently am visiting. Maybe I'll even catch up with myself as of TODAY!! :-)

Before I get going ... I just checked my e-mail, and saw an e-mail from one of my photographer friends with a link to a new picture that he has posted. It's of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and it's a gorgeous shot. If you want to have a look, here's the link. Enjoy!

Now ... on with my passage from Paris to London and beyond...

Day Sixteen (7/11/05) - Paris to London
I won't go into everything that happened that day. You read most of it in Chapter 7. I'll pick up where I left off.

I know that Mom has been waiting anxiously to hear about crossing the English Channel through the Channel Tunnel. First of all, I won't refer to it as the "Chunnel" because I read somewhere that the Brits and the French don't really like or use that nickname. In fact, I have not heard it called that at all while in Europe. For those of you who don't know much about it ... the Channel Tunnel is a tunnel underneath the English Channel, connecting Calais, France to Dover, England. It was opened in 1994. If you want, you can read more about it.

To tell you the truth ... it was no different to ride the train through the Channel Tunnel than it is to ride an underground segment of a subway system. The EuroStar train leaves out of Paris Gare du Nord, has one or two stops on the way (including Calais), then you spend about 20 minutes underground (going through the Channel Tunnel), and my train didn't even stop in Dover, but had one more stop before coming to London's Waterloo station. Sorry ... nothing exciting to report, except that I spent about three hours on the train mostly reading my book.

Here's where the adventure picks up again. Remember the heavy suitcase. Well, I assumed (when I start assuming things ... that's when you ought to be concerned!!) that since Waterloo station in London is both a regular train station AND an "Underground" or "Tube" station (London's subway system is called either "Underground" or "The Tube"), it would be easy for me to get to the Tube stop that is two blocks from my hotel and walk to the hotel (my suitcase has wheels after all!)

Well, me oh my! First of all, the Tube is NOT air conditioned, and London is having hotter and more humid weather than is normal, even for July. Secondly, if you're in Washington, DC, you can assume that, unless otherwise notified, there are escalators or elevators to every single change of level that you have to make. Not so here in the London Underground. There are very many stations with very many levels and very many different "lines" of the system that run at different depths below ground. You may have to go up and down and up again and down again, sometimes on stairs, and sometimes on an escalator just to get to the next track to change trains. AND ... the Waterloo train station is in a completely different part of the building than the Underground station. WHEW!! By the time I had lugged my suitcase up and down and up and down and then some more, and got to my hotel, I was EXHAUSTED!!!!

Now, you may be wondering about the choices of my destinations. Here's the deal on all of that. I think that I've already said that the whole impetus for this trip was when Danny (my colleague who arranged the gite) asked if I wanted to join them in the Southwest of France. I have already been to Europe, a few times, in my life. But each time was a "canned" tour ... a day or two in this city, a day or two in that city, on and off tour busses, etc. I have said that the next time I go to Europe, I would have a much LESS planned trip, and would not really try to *do* any one place in a day or two. So, the plane fares were cheaper if I came into France several days early ... and I decided to spend that extra time (before the gite) doing a France roadtrip. I also decided to spend a couple extra weeks in Europe (after the gite). I have never been to London (as long as you don't count a lay-over at Heathrow airport a few years ago), so I decided that London is a "can't-miss", and decided to spend a week here. I have been to Denmark before ... but it was in 1984, and I just remember that I thought it was absolutely beautiful and couldn't wait to go back. Thus ... France, London, and Denmark.

Anyway ... my hotel is in the city of Westminster (which is really IN London ... just farther West than the city center). I'm only a short walk from Westminster Abby, Tate Britain, Parliament, etc.

Since I arrived that day mid-afternoon, I decided not to try to get any "sightseeing" done. I did a little bit of hunting for camera shops (I had a problem with one of my lenses in France ... okay, I dropped my favorite lens down a flight of stone steps in that cliff city, Rocamadour, and watched it bounce down the steps and then watched the two individual pieces continue to bounce down the steps!!), but have decided that the prices on electronics in Europe is SO much higher than in the U.S. that I will wait until I get home to replace the lens. (sigh...)

One of the camera shops took me up a street that goes right past the New Scotland Yard ... so I am only a short walk from there. When you see Scotland Yard on TV now, talking about the bombings, you can remember that it's rather close to where my hotel is. :-)

On my way back to the hotel, I stopped for dinner at a small chinese place called "Chopstix" and had a chicken w/ blackbean sauce. Then I found the internet place where I am right now, and finished Chapter 7. Then I wandered back to my hotel, and spent the rest of the evening going through London sightseeing brochures to give myself an idea of what I want to do while I'm here. (This is cool: one of the brochures that I looked at listed the prices by "adult, child (under 12), and super-adult (over 65)". Super-adult!! What a great classification!!) :-D

I used the hotel sitting room to look at the brochures because my room is VERY small ... basically a twin bed a closet and a sink, with little space around any of those even for my suitcase, much less movement. Anyway ... the hotel concierge had on a local TV station that happened to be playing a show that had taken a poll of their viewers and went through the top ten viewer favorite British actors. I realized that a LOT of my favorite actors are British. They forgot to put Pierce Brosnan on the list, but I'm quite sure that was an oversight. They also forgot to put Patrick Stewart on the list ... another oversight. But they DID have Daniel Day Lewis, Kenneth Branagh, Alec Guiness (I LOVE the movie "On the River Kwai"!!) and ... top favorite actor was Anthony Hopkins! He's definitely one of my favorites. They also had Sean Connery, who is one of those actors whose movies I will see ONLY because he's in it and for no other justifiable reason. Too bad that they're going to be doing the top ten favorite British actresses next week (I'll be gone by then), as I'm SURE that Judy Dench will be on that list ... and she's one of my favorite actresses!!

Oh - and ... get this ... I have discovered that there are Starbucks in London!!! :-) Now, I promise that I haven't been to Starbucks EVERY day ... nope, I didn't go on Tuesday. :-) But, I am rather certain that I won't get any Starbucks when I'm in Denmark next week ... and I am not getting nearly enough calcium because I can't really find soy milk anywhere ... so I feel completely justified!! :-D

Day Seventeen (7/12/05) - London
Now, for those of you who have never travelled to Europe, I'm not sure that you know that sometimes the hotels don't have the traditional bathroom in the hotel room. You share a bathroom/shower in the hallway. Those hotels are often much more cost-effective. And some hotels have some rooms with private bath and some not. Well, as London is VERY expensive, I decided to get a hotel room that shares a bathroom and shower. It's a small hotel, and most of the rooms have private bath/shower ... so I'm not sharing with very many people (in fact, a few of the nights I think that I was the only one). It's quite amusing, though, to try to remember to bring everything that I'm going to need for my shower with me. I invariably forget the soap or the washcloth or something. Well, I won't go into detail, but my first morning shower at that hotel was quite a debacle. I just ended up laughing and laughing. Oh, well ... live and learn. I haven't had any more problems since!! :-)

The hotel also has a full breakfast. Not the "continental" deal ... but the real McCoy! Croissant, hot eggs, cereal, toast, tea or coffee, etc. And it's all served to you, restaurant-style. Quite nice! I've had breakfast there every morning so far!

Now ... the Underground (a.k.a. the Tube) ... like I said, it's not air conditioned and its got quite a combination of stairs and escalators. After driving in France where they don't have road signs with North, East, South or West marked on them ... it's funny that all of the different colored Tube lines differentiate their tracks by "Northbound" or "Southbound", etc. I have a great sense of direction (unless traffic circles are involved), so I haven't had any trouble figuring it out ... but that's a bit different than in Washington. Anyway ... because of the bombings in three of the Underground passages, there are, of course, closures and delays. Often quite significant delays. So ... you just have to decide to amend your plans when you are trying to get somewhere. I have found that I also have to plan for extra time in the system when I need to be somewhere via the Tube. Not a problem. They also have quite a good bit of security down there, as well as police walking around and announcements about unattended baggage on a regular basis.

That morning, I took the Tube down to the river and found the London Eye. Now, if you haven't been to London recently, you may not even be aware of what the London Eye is. If not, please make sure that you click here and take a look at the pictures. Basically, it's like a glorified ferris wheel. It's called an "observation tower" or something like that. It moves VERY slowly, and one ride around takes 30 minutes. (And that's all you get.) The cars are little glass capsules. When you're at the top you get a truly 360 view of the city. I saw a photo of a London Eye capsule in the portfolio of one of my photographer friends, and read about it, and decided that I couldn't wait to ride it. And it was FABULOUS!! Since I was one of the first people there (morning-person-itis strikes again!), there were only about 5 people in the capsule with me, and one was a London-native and he basically gave us a tour-guide's overview of the city. The views were great, and the ride was so smooth that you didn't even realize that you were moving.

When I got off the Eye, I was sitting at the bottom when a lady with an American accent was talking with a group of kids (10-year-olds) and was giving them teacher-ese. I started laughing and she turned and said something to me, and we started talking and it turns out that the group is from the DC area. It's a group of 5th graders in a Student Ambassador program, and the kids and teachers are from all over the DC/Baltimore area. In fact, one of the gals lives and teaches in Woodbridge. Small world, huh?

The Eye is right on the river bank, so I spent quite some time wandering up and down that part of the river, taking pictures (very close to Parliament and Big Ben).

One of the brochures that I found was for something called the Original London Walks. Well ... I am SO glad that I stumbled upon this brochure. I love walking tours of cities/towns that I don't know ... and they have loads of walks around all different parts of London, and based on many different themes. That afternoon, I chose to do a walk around "Old Westminster". It was an exceptional tour. The tourguide was very knowledgeable and was quite dramatic. He did all sorts of quotes and impressions of folks like Winston Churchill. It was great fun. He even sang for us the song that goes along with the Westminster Chimes ... sound familiar, Linda? :-) He said that the tune (you know it) was taken from Handel's Messiah. I just found, online, that it was taken from a phrase in "I know that my Redeemer Liveth", but I don't remember anything that sounds like that...

I did some more wandering around the city, staking out some places that I want to visit later in the week. I ended up too far from the hotel to walk back, and I saw a city bus that would take me close ... so I rode one of those double decker red busses on the top level. Such fun! :-)

That evening I ate fish and chips at a restaurant in Victoria called The Shakespeare. I stopped at the internet place again and typed on the blog for awhile, and then forgot my notebook there. OH NO!! When I got back to the hotel and realized it, there was only 5 minutes until the place was to close and it would have been a 10 minute walk. EVERYTHING is in that notebook/journal. Detailed notes about what I've done every day and about the pictures that I've taken, as well as addresses and phone numbers and plans for what I want to see ... and pictures of my nephews. (Obviously, I got the notebook back ... but I was panicked!!) All I could think was that someone would be cleaning up the shop at the end of the day and see the notebook and throw it out. EEEEEKKKK!!! I worry too much!!

Okay - I suppose that I won't catch up with myself like I had hoped. But you have enough to read this time to keep you busy. Next time I'll talk about some more wanderings around Westminster, lunch with Jackie, and dinner with a photographer and his family. I might even get into mentioning some of the things that are just a little bit different, culturally, that make it very interesting to be here....

Oh - and, the internet place is closed on Sunday and I might not find another one, and Monday and Tuesday are going to be mostly travel days, so you may not hear from me for a few. Don't be worried!! :-D

Cheerio, until then!