Lou Ann's EuroBlog

"Travel is the most private of pleasures. There is no greater bore than the travel bore. We do not in the least want to hear what he has seen in Hong-Kong."
-Vita Sackville-West

Haha!! Fun quote, huh? I still must admit that I am truly surprised that some of you actually read these things that I type when I travel. :-)

Anyway - in case you missed it, I updated just last evening, and now again this afternoon ... so you may have to scroll down and catch the previous chapter before reading this one. I happened to find an internet place that was actually open on a Sunday (not much is around here ... I've even had trouble finding places to EAT!), and happened to find an extra hour to type. So ... here goes.

Day Eighteen (7/13/05) - London
I got up early that morning and was out taking a lovely morning walk (from about 6:00 to 7:30) around Westminster. It was much nicer to look at the Abby and Big Ben and Parliament without so many people around. After breakfast at the hotel, I did some more wandering ... found a travel guide for Denmark that is much better than the ones that I found in the States and has a Danish phrases section (which doesn't exist in the other travel guides I was looking at).

While at the bookstore I made a potentially dangerous discovery. (Kate - warning ... if you click on the upcoming link, I deny all attempts by you to blame me for your future addictions!!) There is this thing that has taken all of England by storm. (Maybe it's taken the U.S. by storm, too, and I just didn't know about it...) Anyway ... it's called Su Doku. Have you heard about it? Take a minute and look at the official Su Doku website. These aren't math puzzles ... they happen to use numbers, but could as easily use letters or symbols. It has more to do with logic and reasoning than with math. Anyway ... I saw one of the many books sitting on the counter at the bookstore and leafed through it and bought it. Since then, I have seen lots (LOTS!!) of people working on Su Doku puzzles. They're in the newspaper here every day. They come in books like crossword puzzles. The guy behind me in line at the bookstore was buying THREE books for his wife. I thought I would buy one book to play with, and maybe to use in my classroom. DANGER! I have had to discipline myself to put the book down!!!

Anyway ... I went back to the internet place when they opened and, voila ... they had my notebook, right where I left it the previous evening (whew!!) It made me feel MUCH better.

After some more wandering around I met Jackie at about noon. Now, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about ... Jackie is not infamous! :-) You see, mostly the people who read my main blog are Kate's friends. Some of them I've met, and some of them I haven't met. But, since she has a link to my blog near the top of hers (as does her husband), many of her friends click over to read mine. Jackie is one of those people ... and happens to be one who I haven't met yet. (They're also the people who tend to comment the most ... why don't the rest of you comment??) :-D Anyway ... Jackie and her husband were living in Chicago until about 4 weeks ago, when he took a voluntary job transfer to London. They put all of their furniture, etc., into storage, had most of the rest shipped, grabbed their backpacks, and moved on over here. I have been trying to convince Jackie to start a "London Blog" (uh huh, Jackie!!), and in the course of our commenting back and forth about that, we ended up deciding to meet up here. So ... we arranged to find each other outside a particular Tube station (and had to change those plans due to the interruption in services due to the bombings). We found each other rather easily, we shopped at the outdoor markets at Covent Gardens for awhile, and then had a delicious lunch at a Thai place. We chatted for quite awhile ... and I can't speak for Jackie, but I had a great time! I'm so glad that we met up!! Yay, Jackie!!

One thing that I have to tell you about from that lunch. After we had ordered and were waiting for our meals, I noticed that the woman was using an actual dumb waiter to get the food from the kitchen which was obviously in the basement. I don't think that I have ever seen a dumb waiter being used!! Then, a couple of days later, I saw the same thing again in a different restaurant. It must be that because so many of the buildings around here are so very narrow (old city), the kitchens are all in the basements, and it's easier than coming up and down flights of stairs with food. You think?

Anyway - another person whose name you may not recognize is Colin. He is one of the photographers on that photography website that I participate in. He is one of the photographers online with whom I interact most frequently. Here's the link to his portfolio online. Well, Colin lives just outside of London (within the Metro area), and I was asking him about visiting London and some of the things that I was planning to do. We decided to meet up ... and that turned into an invitation to have dinner at his home with he and his wife (and his adult daughter who lives with them got home late from work while I was there).

I took the Tube for about 45 minutes or so, and Colin picked me up at the Tube station. He lives not but a 5 or 10 minute drive from the station. He and his wife are the most wonderful people. They have a lovely backyard (remember those English gardens I told you about?) ... and we sat outside for quite a while getting to know each other. Then they fed me as if I'd never eaten before, and we had dessert and kept talking. I finally decided that it would be good to get back to the hotel before dark (so that I wouldn't have to walk from the Tube to the hotel (only two blocks ... but still) in the dark). Colin actually offered to drive me to the hotel, but I didn't really think that it would be necessary. Anyway ... it was such a neat experience ... to spend some time in a British home with people who were born and bred in Britain, talking about everyday things and common interests. We had a great time!!

Well, I made it back to the hotel in one piece. (Although it was a little bit weird that there was next to no one on the Underground trains all the way back ... I can't decide if I like the trains empty or packed. There never seems to be an inbetween.)

I'll save telling you about Thursday in the Cotswolds and Oxford for my next chapter ... I would actually like to ramble a bit about some interesting cultural differences that I'm discovering on a regular basis.

First of all, the coins. Now, I have always complained when they've tried to push one-dollar coins at us. I always thought it was silly. Well, now after spending two weeks in France using the Euro and one week in London using the pound, I have changed my mind quite a bit. Both the Euro and the Pound start their paper money at the denomination of 5. There are both one Euro and two Euro coins as well as one pound and two pound coins. Brilliant!! I enjoy using these coins, and find it to be much more conventient. Strange, isn't it ... especially for someone who practically ignores the change in her wallet at home (I have a couple of big jars that I pour it all into!)

Well ... the screen is flashing at me that I have only about three minutes left. So I need to be off for now. Take care, everyone!

Cheerio! :-)