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Bryan

Roaming London

  • Aug 05, 2000
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Breakfast in the hotel – had some English bacon – just really salty ham – pretty tough to eat and very salty. We hopped onto an open-topped red bus and toured the entire city of London. Saw the Tower of London, Parliament, Westminster Abbey… all the tourist attractions at 45 mph.

We left the bus and checked out the house guards, Parliament, and Big Ben on foot. Got some good pictures. Pretty much all the spots are available via the Underground. It is very amazing – some of the stations are very modern and some are pretty old and remote.

We had a Chinese buffet near Notting Hill, which was very good. We ate at the top floor and got to see the town bustling beneath us. We sprinted (a little late) over to Waterloo station (home of the chunnel trains) to ride the London Eye, a monstrous ferris wheel that held many people in each car. A French family cut in front of us in line – pleading to the attendant that their tickets were for 9:00 pm. He let them through even though our tickets were for 8:30 – we didn’t mention that. We ended up sharing a car.

The view was spectacular – the sun was setting as we rode up, and we saw London by day on the way up and London by night on the way down – perfect!

We walked to Big Ben from there and then took the Underground back to the hotel for beers and bed.

Flying into London

  • Aug 04, 2000
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Flew in and spent 30 minutes in customs, then walked to the Heathrow underground station and took a long train ride to the transfer station – we jumped on a transfer train and stopped at our station – Marble Arch. We turned right as we left the station and found our hotel (The Cumberland) facing the Marble Arch. We dropped off our stuff and went exploring.

Walked past McDonald’s and KFC and found the “Marlborough Head” pub – probably a chain, thoug. Good “potato niblets” and even better Guinness… no local brews. We walked to Grosenver Square – a pro-American area dedicated to American war heroes. No pubs, so we walked on. Stopped at the “Shepherd’s Mow” and had some good (somewhat warm) beer and watched a cricket game on TV. We headed to Picadilly Circus and saw the sights – stopped at a bar, too.

There really is a language barrier – we’ve had trouble being understood by the locals – they seem slightly amused. I’m worried if we’re having trouble communicating in London – I wonder if we’ll have more trouble in the countryside. We had a great Italian meal at “The Spaghetti House” and headed back to crash at the hotel.