Arrival in London

I last wrote from the Red Carpet Club at the Denver airport.  I have been back from England for a week now and I am just starting to write up my experiences.  To say that I didn't have time while abroad is an understatement.  I spent all of my "free" time sleeping.  The days were so packed with activity and Michael and I were so exhausted on our return that we are just now getting back to normal.  It was truly a wonderful trip.

Once we finally boarded the plane, the flight to London was uneventful.  My new i-Pod Touch provided me with hours of music.  I watched a good movie (Invictus). I read. I even slept for a few hours.  We left Denver at 8:00 p.m. local time Monday and arrived at Heathrow airport shortly after noon London time Tuesday.  The seven hour time difference wasn't too bad as my body thought it was early evening.  Michael and I took the "underground" to Earls Court and were in our hotel by 2:30.  A quick splash of water on the face and we were off to find theater tickets and walk around London.

Michael has been going to London once or twice a year for at least a decade so he knows the city well.  We walked from Hyde  Park to Victoria station where we got tickets for the Friday performance of Billy Elliott at the Victoria Palace theater.  Michael urged me to take the underground toward the center of London and suggested we exit the Westminster station.  I came up the stairs on to the street facing this huge clock tower and distinctive buildings.  Within two minutes the clock chimed 5:00 p.m.  What an introduction to Big Ben and the British Parliament!  Bong... bong...bong...bong...bong.  Up close and personal.

We walked across the Thames to the south bank and along the edge of the river for several blocks.  It has been mostly redeveloped into a pedestrian mall.  Michael offered to buy me a ticket to go up in the "London Eye" Ferris wheel while he remained on the ground.  I declined. We kept walking and crossed back across the Thames on the Waterloo bridge.  I had seen pictures of most of the sights but it is entirely different, and thrilling, to actually be there. Somehow I had expected the Parliament buildings to be bigger and the river to be wider.  I also was not expecting to see so many modern glass and steel buildings towering over the more historical ones.

We made our way through Convent Garden, which is now an upscale shopping area. It used to be a real market; now the covered stalls are filled with restaurants and boutiques. We passed lots of theater marquees.  A few streets uphill there is a small Chinatown where we had an excellent dinner in at Mr. Wong's  Chinese restaurant.  Another underground ride back to our hotel and it was "early" to bed.  The local clocks said 10 p.m. but my body thought it had been up all night.  By Boulder, CO reckoning, it had.

Wednesday we got an early start.  We were at the hotel's breakfast as soon as it opened.  We planned to take the 9:00 train to Chester and later go on to Windemere in the lake country in the north west of England.   The underground was slow. We had to change trains at Paddington and got on one going the wrong way.  After changing at the next station to the right subway train we were late. We arrived breathless at the Euston railroad station. We had purchased British rail passes and had to get them validated before using them.  We got to the ticket counter one minute before train time.  The attendant told us to hurry to the platform, it was just around the corner, one minute would be plenty of time.  We ran down the platform dragging our wheeled carry on luggage and pulled ourselves into the last passenger car just as the doors were closing!