London

The air trip went very smoothly—no delays, no turbulence, no sleep either though! When we arrived at Heathrow at 9:00 AM, we caught a cab to the hotel. The cabbie was very nice and answered all of my crazy American English teacher questions. It was an expensive cab ride at 40 pounds, but with our luggage and not knowing where we were and where we were going, a necessary expense.

I promise that I will never pay any attention to the bad reviews in Trip Advisor, as we found all negative comments untrue (with the exception of one—the room was very warm even with the window wide open and temperatures outside in the twenties). The lobby of this Victorian townhouse was very English, with oil portrait paintings, leather club furniture, a chessboard set up between two upholstered wingback chairs, a beautiful bar, and lovely cherry wood paneling and moldings throughout. Our room was small, but certainly large enough for two. The bathroom was well-appointed with cherry and granite floor to ceiling.

On our first day, though exhausted from lack of sleep, we managed to do quite a bit. Lunch at Zaxazhu Arms, opened originally by Charlie Chaplin’s brother. This was our first exposure to no table service. Everything here is ordered at the bar if you are in a pub. This pub was quite good—beers (a couple each) and Bob had a bacon-ripe Stilton cheese burger and I had a steak sandwich, all with “chips” of course. Pricey but our first food in a while. My first disappointment, not one of the staff members was English—they were all Romanian and very rude—oh well. Next came a visit to the Tate Museum, followed by Picadilly Circus (to buy ½ price tickets for a show at TKTS), and then a show, for 39 pounds each, The Jersey Boys. It was wonderful as was our first day and our time in the theatre district, having tea, shopping, and exploring, agog. Lovely, as they say here. Oh, and it snowed!

We hit the sack late that night after watching a bit of English telly. Tomorrow, tea with the Queen?

Day 2

Awoke at a reasonable hour despite the fact that we had little sleep. Breakfast (cheese omelets with the ubiquitous chips which are French fries) across the street from the hotel which is in South Kensington, I guess a very ritzy area. We each had coffee (Bob espresso and me, Café Latte) at the Internet place which wasn’t two expensive one pound per ½ hour. At that point I decided that I shouldn’t waste my time online when there were so many glorious things to do in London. That would be the last time I would go online before Dublin.

Our hotel concierge helped us purchase advance tickets for the tour and for the coach to Duxford tomorrow. We walked quite a distance through a lovely shopping district in order to catch a tour bus. We took the Original Tour, the yellow tour, so, of course, there were no stops close to the hotel and we walked past the Museum of Natural History, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and through Kensington Gardens, and Hyde Park—probably about 2 miles. My knee was doing pretty well, but poor Bob’s ankles, knee, feet and back was killing him so it was slow-going for a while. Once we arrived at our stop, we boarded the bus for a 2 ½ hour tour. We saw everything important but we got off the bus a few times to visit such sites as Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, of course.

On our walk back, we stopped at Harrods. I cannot believe their magnificent food halls. Beautiful meats and cheeses in one (and pates of various sorts), fish in another, candy in another, vegetables in another. We saw the most beautiful packages of carrots with their tops on—gorgeous enough to be on a Beatrice Potter book cover, and they were only 14 pounds sterling. That’s approximately 20 bucks. Wha! I thought about a glass of champagne, but I knew one would lead to two and three and then I wouldn’t be able to resist the ice cream shop on the 4^th floor.

We also then went into the Victoria and Albert museum where we spent quite a bit of time in the Medieval and Renaissance areas. There was an art class there also with all students on stools, drawing with pencil various statues and columns. Based on their sketches, I would guess it was an advanced class, as they were beautifully done. I tried to get Bob to go to the Museum of Natural History since it was right next door and would be open for another hour, but he wouldn’t go.

Dinner on Day 2 was at The Toy and Hoop pub around the corner from our hotel. These pubs get packed every night at around 6PM. I don’t think anyone cooks at home OR perhaps all the gentlemen stop in for a pint. We quickly found a little table in the corner with seats with backs (most were little upholstered stools). Bob had a Czechoslovakian ale and an English abbey ale which he didn’t like. I had Stella Artois. For dinner, I couldn’t decide between the beef and stout casserole or the English pot roast with Yorkshire pudding, peas and mash. I chose the latter—and it was truly a treat—yumm. Bob had a sausage sampler (which I tried—excellent and so was the mustard). We stayed a while and since it was quite late (9PM), we headed to the hotel.

A lot of walking that day and my knee was killing me so much that I couldn’t sleep.

Day 3

Today, we took the underground to Victoria Station and found the Victoria Coach house, eventually and no thanks to the three British men and women we asked for directions. Our bus left on time, 9:30AM and we were on our way to Duxford, and the Imperial War Museum. A gas main had broken in London so our trip through London up to East London was slow and mired by traffic jams. God bless anyone, let alone a bus driver, who drives in London. This is another fascination---this driving on the left side of the road. I guess I could do it as long as I was following traffic, though the left-hand turns are weird.

I enjoyed the English countryside, though I’m sure it’s much more beautiful in spring and summer. Again, though, as in Italy, I am surprised at the number of people who live in flats rather than homes in London. Actually, this is just another factor that leads us to compare London to New York. Apartments are extremely expensive and mostly rented by the week, almost everyone speaks another language, there are restaurants, shops of all sorts, lining all streets even in residential areas, the Underground (though cleaner than New York) is the main way to get around town along with the double-decker buses. People rush everywhere and there are hordes of people rushing out of the Underground and into the Underground.

Bob really enjoyed the Imperial War Museum. Although, again, we did a lot of walking hangar to hangar and within each hangar (there are 7 of them), we did enjoy the day. Bob’s words: “It’s an ex-RAF base home to Duxford’s wing of Spitfires during World War II. The first hangar dealt mainly with the history of flight with interactive displays of aeronautical principles including lift, drag, thrust aircraft design and production as well as operational functions of military aircraft. Here’s a series of historical aircraft from World War I, II, Korean and the Cold War, including the V bombers of nuclear deterrence (Victor and Vulcan) and other historical British aircraft. Hangar 2 was the classic flying aircraft which were in the midst of restoration and conservation, both American and British aircraft, such as Hurricanes of various marks, Spitfires, Royal Navy aircraft which were mostly American, Corsair, Wildcat and Hellcat. Hangar 3 restoration of rare British and International aircraft such as Fiat CR 42 Falco, Heinkel 111, Faerie Firefly, Hawker Hunter, MG 21, Glouster Javelin, Faerie Gannet. Hangar 4 was the Battle of Britain with sound effects of fighter planes and the air raid sirens. This included a Hawker Hurricane, Spitfire Mark 9 and various exhibits like air shelters, anti-invasion shelters and instructive videos containing the various aspects of the Battle of Britain. Also, there was a full-scale Fiesler F103 buzz bomb. There was a cutaway of a German midget submarine, the remains of a British midget submarine that crippled tirpitz in Norway, and Japanese 24-inch long lance torpedo. There were various boats Vosper 60—foot MTB and WW I CMV’s, including one that sank a Red Russian cruiser during the anti-Bolshevik wars. Hangar 6 contained American planes (Bob wasn’t interested) and Hangar 7 held tanks and would’ve been about Monty Montgomery who Bob hated.

On the long, cold, windy (wind was a head wind) walk back to the beginning, we decided to stop at the café. We both had coffee and I had a bowl of vegetable soup. I enjoyed it so much either because I was starving or freezing, but it was like bean soup—thick and filled with peas.

We were supposed to be picked up at 4:00 and both of us began to wonder what would happen if the bus didn’t show up. It was snowing and the wind was blowing wildly. The birds couldn’t even fly forward without being pushed back by the wind. Although we were in a shelter, we were freezing and both of us went through various scenarios of what we would do if the bus doesn’t come. You have to understand that this museum was out in the country side, the museum staff members were leaving and the parking lost was soon deserted. It was almost funny that as both of us looked toward the road into the museum (which was an airfield) failing to see any bus, let alone ours, we were both secretly pretty worried. However, the bus arrived at 4:05Pm and thus began the long drive back into London. When we got off the bus, we had to walk through the snow from the Victoria Coach station to the Victoria Underground station. Our stop was South Kensington and it was teeming with people coming home from dinner. Every restaurant we passed was packed with queues lining the sidewalks and restaurant entry ways. I became a bit overwhelmed and told Bob, “Let’s just go back to the hotel and pack.” Instead, he found a cute place, Montovany’s. It was a cute little place that had a nice menu consisting of all types of salads, sandwiches, burgers, ribs, chicken dishes, pasta dishes. Bob’s peppercorn burger reminded me of a dish that Bob prepares at home taken from a Wolfgang Puck recipe. The students sitting next to us coveted it. I had to have fish and chips before I left London, so that is what we had. We both had a couple of Carlsbergs and Bob finished his dinner off with a nice red wine. Actually, the fish and chips (fries) tasted just like fish and chips at home—I don’t know why I thought it would be different.

We walked around Kensington a bit and then headed for the hotel. We had to repack since a car was coming for us at 7:45 AM and taking us to Euston Train Station so we could catch a 9:10 to Hollyhead in order to catch the ferry to Dublin.

Day 4

Woke at 6:30 AM with alarm. UGH! Finished packing, showered, dressed and headed to the lobby to check out and wait for the car. The car was early and the driver was a very nice Londoner who gave us a tour on the way to the Euston rail station, parked near a lift at the station for us. We had coffee, sausage rolls, and waited for our train’s platform to be announced and here we are now. The train is nice, has a plug for my computer and this is where I’m typing these log entries so I can transfer them to the blog as soon as we have Internet availability.

bob won't give up his camera as presently we are on the coast of Ireland and the ocean is in view