Walking around in London Town
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2006
1
34
80
Trip End
??? ??, 2007
London,
United Kingdom
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Once we got there, it was a sprint for the Tanzanian Embassy, which closed just after noon, so we could apply for our visas in time to pick them back up before our flight on Thursday. The man behind the counter explained to me that the information on their website was slightly off, that we couldn't pick them up on Wednesday. It would in fact be the following Monday before our visas would be ready. Unless we could pay 5 pounds each to "fast track" our visas, in which case they could be ready the next day. Ah... a little preview of how it's going to work in Africa. There's no line, though, and we submit our applications and jump back on the tube for Bayswater, where our hostel was located
Protected at Last
. We checked into Hostel 63, so named for it's address on Prince's Square, and not for the number of violations of the Health and Safety codes, as a casual observer might think. Our room is up five flights of stairs, an 8 bed jumble, packed so tight that I have to exhale to squeeze between the two bunks stacked closest to the door. We dropped our junk, sauntered down to the kitchen for a light snack from our food bag, and headed back out into the blowing drizzle for a nice walk. Our objective? Spend as little as possible for the rest of the day, having already seen a small fortune in visa fees and accommodation costs fly out of our hands.
We started off with a walk through Hyde Park, past a menagerie of birds in the water, including a black swan with a red and white striped bill. Very striking. Before long, we came to the memorial fountain for Princess Di, a circular stream of water continually flowing around on a gentle slope. It's not really a fountain at all, but it's beautifully done. By this time, the wind was threatening to destroy the cheap umbrella we'd picked up in Barcelona, so we stepped into the Victoria and Albert Museum. Unlike many places where the museum fees keep us out, the British have an admirable commitment to making their fantastic museums free to the public. The V&A was one of the best-done museums I've ever stepped foot in, and so large that we spent 2 hours there and didn't even scratch the surface. Whole rooms from historical homes had actually been taken apart and relocated there, so that you could step inside and be fully immersed in the experience. Our museum experiences would continue throughout the week, with trips to the British Museum (Acropolis fragments and unwrapped mummies- cool!) and the Tate Museum of Modern Art, which was awesome because the lobby has these wild slides that can take you down up to 5 stories from the galleries to the main floor
You can go home again... just not inside.
. On the final day, Mike took us to the most impressive single collection I've ever seen. A private collector filled his very large house with paintings, armor, china, furniture, and a variety of knick-knacks, then bequeathed the whole lot to the British public, to be displayed much as he kept it. Several original paintings here are well known throughout the world, including "The Laughing Cavalier", quite a few Rembrants, and several by Vasquez. If only every country would show the commitment to education of the public that the British do with their museums. Cierra can't resist a jaunt into Harrod's, a super fancy department store where every room seems to be themed. The escalator up 5 stories is made up in an ancient Egyptian theme, the sushi counter has Asian girls in kimonos behind it, and everything is obscenely expensive. But Cierra loves it because they have an equestrian department, and really, where else could you even think about buying a saddle in a department store?
Meeting up with Mike and several of his compatriots at a local pub turned out to be a perfect way to end the evening. Mika showed up, Mike's eldest granddaughter (which makes her Hunter's cousin or 2nd cousin or cousin once removed... we have no idea how all that works.) Although she was working hard on a dissertation that had to be turned in on Wednesday, she took a bit of time to come meet her distant relatives from the States. She'd already done a bunch of traveling in South America, so we were eager to talk to her about that. Hunter had a pint and a half of London Pride before ending his consumption for the evening, an amount whose puniness earned him some good natured ribbing from his English companions. All this took place in a very old-fashioned pub that still had its original snugs, wooden compartments with closing doors that open up to a small space on the bar, so you can drink in peace observed only by the bartender.
The next day, we walked all over London, racking up well over 10 miles on the bottoms of our tired feet. We managed to find half-price tickets to the theater, a small play called "Love Song" with some big names in it. Cillian Murphy was the lead, perhaps best known as the Scarecrow in the latest Batman movie. Michael McKean (This is Spinal Tap) and Kristen Johnson (3rd Rock from the Sun) provided great comic relief, and Neve Campbell (Scream) played the hero's psychopathic love interest. How fun to get to watch this team work together on stage!
Finding food we could afford was proving to be a bit of a problem. Every restaurant we stepped into was too expensive to believe. Here we were again in a country where we couldn't afford to eat at McDonald's even if we wanted to. We finally got smart and asked a couple of construction workers where we could get a cheap bite. They sent us in the direction of a place with a well priced one-trip buffet. I paid while Cierra piled a plate high with a mountain of food that we then shared. Cheating? I don't think so. Then we found some delicious half-expired convenience store sandwiches for dinner. Now we're talking!
Our slumber that night was rudely awakened by 3 new girls and their adventures with a uninvited mouse. One of them heard it going through their stuff, and then woke the other two up so they could whisper about it for about an hour, dragging their bags around the room, eventually opening up the door to the room and talking in the hall with the door wide open. I eventually gave up trying to sleep and got up to use the bathroom. On my way back, one of the girls showed me the proof that the mouse had been there, bites in a chocolate bar that was sticking out of her bulging bag.
"And your bag was just open like that?"
"Yeah." she said.
"With a chocolate bar sticking out. Look, when I stay in a place like this, I try to make it a general rule not to spend too much time looking for mice or roaches. You've got a roof over your heads. It's a good thing." Now go back to sleep, I added mentally, as I clambered back into my bunk to set a good example.
Mike's deep love for London and his understanding of architecture makes him the perfect person to take us on a walk for most of Wednesday. We walked by the factory-like British Library and a wonderful brick structure that used to house the University Hospital. He took us through the 3 "inns" that make up the courts of London, huge multi-building complexes with sprawling grounds. He showed us the building he'd grown up living in, and the building he'd delivered his mother's writing to on Fleet Street, the home of London's greatest newspapers. With an eye for detail, Mike pointed out different eras of buildings, bomb damage from the war, postwar rebuilding that was done well, and some that he didn't approve of.
That evening, we met up with Patrick, Mike's son and an architect with a thriving practice, for a little "fish and chips" at what turns out to be a fine dining restaurant. We found the conversation with Patrick to be really fun, and before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye as he was dropping us off again at the tube station. Right before we went through the turnstiles, Cierra realized that she'd left our camera on the chair back at the restaurant. She was too embarrassed to call Patrick for help, so we called the restaurant and found out that we had 15 minutes before they closed. "I don't think we can make it back there." she said.
"I can.", I replied. That's how I got to run over 3 kilometers back to the restaurant, to arrive just as they were locking up and beg for our camera with what little breath I had left. Once the waitress realized that I wasn't a crazy person about to stab her, she returned it. Cierra had tried to keep up with me for a few blocks, but I'd left her in the dust, so now I walked back to join her with burning lungs, but a proud step.
That night, the shenanigans continued as a young Aussie girl arrived and conspired with a French kid staying in our room to bait the mouse into making a return appearance. More whispering for hours on end, punctuated later that night by this girl practicing what sounded like a gymnastic routine just getting into and out of bed. Her dismount consisted of throwing herself into the center of the room with a loud thump, and it seemed to happen every 15 minutes. Watch out, I thought. Anyone doing that in here is in danger of blazing a shortcut to a lower floor. In the morning, the girl feigned surprise when she found that the mouse had indeed discovered her cereal bag and strewn the contents all over the floor. Apparently the crumbs she'd left out to appease the mouse god hadn't been seen as a sufficient offering!
On our final day in London we said goodbye to Mike after a museum visit and a walk, went quickly up to see Camden Town, where the punk population of London makes its home, then had to break off and head for the airport. Checking the email right before we boarded the plane, we found several replies to the hospitality queries we sent out for Tanzania, and we quickly responded to a nice fellow named Mwasi. He'd offered to pick us up from the airport, but since we'd be there in only 10 hours, and it would be at 7:30 in the morning, it wasn't likely he would get my reply by then...
