Leanne Around the Globe

Well Laura and I awoke to snow this morning and more continued to fall throughout the day, which did help to cut down on the number of people out and about, but also left us cold and searching out warm places to hang out. Luckily we each brought long underwear. I am washing the pair I am wearing each night so that I'll have a clean one the next day. Plus we have the radiator in the room going full boar as soon as we get back to the hotel.

Today we popped over to Buckingham Palace and got several pictures of the palace with snow in the yard. The Queen wasn't home. Then we stopped by the Queen's gallery to see part of her collection of paintings and other beautiful items. It was nice and warm and there was a free auto tour included. So we spent an hour looking around and then went down to the gift shop ('cus the tour isn't complete without a turn around the shop). Apparently every one else that was stopping by to see the palace today also decided to stop by the gift shop and it was crowded.

We next decided to walk through St. James' Park over to Whitehall street and froze our tushes! St. James' Park is large and beautiful with a lake and swans in it, but today it was covered with snow. Once at Whitehall street, we walked down looking at the different Houses of Parliament and Judicial buildings and such. We saw the royal horse guards on top of the royal horses out in the snow. The poor things were probably cold, but luckily they had a bit of a shelter to stand in. Across from the Horse guards is the Banqueting house which is all that is left of Whitehall Palace on the bank of the Thames and where Charles I was executed. We stopped in there since we had a free pass to see the amazing ceiling panels that were painted of James I. It's still used for large occasions like state dinners.

We were going to head into Westminister Abbey next, but were cold and not sure if we'd have enough time to see everything, so we headed up to the National Galleries for lunch and to stay warm. The whole day it was snowing (although not sticking here in London) and it was nice to be inside and warm. According to the news, it's the worst winter in half a century. All around London, the roads and countryside a buried in snow. So far Heathrow is clear, but for how long is questionable. Laura and I are supposed to leave on Saturday and hopefully the plane will be able to take off. Otherwise we'll be sleeping at the airport. Maybe I better pick up a sleeping bag at Harrod's before I leave. :-)

We did visit Harrod's yesterday and got completely lost inside the 8 or 9 or however many levels there are. It is insane! I'm surprised we even may it out of the store alive!
Earlier we checked out the Tower of London and saw the crown jewels, which I had missed the first time I came to London. We spent several hours touring the Tower and saw a special exhibit on Henry VIII's armory with his personnel suits of armor. It was hard to warm up there.

Monday, we did our tour of Windsor Castle (nope the Queen wasn't there either), Stonehenge and the Roman baths at Bath. It was a long day, but we enjoyed it, especially getting to stop for lunch at a local pub.

Sorry to cut short, but it's been a tiring day and I want to warm up in a bath.

Well, after another slow start today, we headed off to Kensington Palace. I had to stop for Starbucks along the way to get me going after a late night. Kensington Palace is the previous home of Princess Diana and it's open as a museum and with the original State rooms of William & Mary and Queen Victoria.
As we were heading into the Palace, some people with the Royal Palaces society talked us into joining their organization. It was a special going on and was the same price as going to Kensington Palace and The Tower of London and we get to go to the front of the line at the tower, so we thought it would be worth it.

There was an exhibit at Kensington on fashion and Debutants with some dresses worn by Princess Diana, very beautiful. The exhibit on the Debutants was fun and interactive. We tried tying a bowtie (not easy), dancing the waltz, curtesying (I couldn't bend down very far) and walking with books on our heads.

The state rooms were set up like the original Kings and Queens apartments with lovely furnature, paintings of the royals and gorgeous rooms. Plus, we got a great view of the gardens and could see all the way to the eye of London.

After the Palace, we went looking for food and found a Whole Foods with a large eating area. On the way out though, I wanted to take a picture of the market to show people how HUGE it was (multiple floors), but apparently you aren't supposed to take pictures in there as we were told by the undercover store security. Oops, how was I to know? I didn't see any signs, or perhaps I ignored them.

It was a nice cold sunny day (about 2 degrees C) and we walked through the Kensington Gardens. There's a large pond near the Palace with swans. Lots of people were out for a walk today along with several dogs and I had fun watching the dogs greet each other. We eventually found our way to the Peter Pan statue and the Italians (frozen) Water Gardens where there were more swans and plenty of other water fowl. Finally it was getting to be too cold and we headed for the Victoria and Albert museum to enjoy some warmth.

On our way back to the hotel, we found this internet and copy place that is much faster then the Hotel computer and cheaper. We're uploading some more pictures now for your viewing pleasure.

By the way, if you want another perspective, my traveling companion Laura has a blog to at http://lauramw77.travellerspoint.com. She's been taking LOADS of pictures and is uploading some now. Well, back to the hotel to drop off some stuff and then we'll be looking for some food. Perhaps do some shopping as well, it's sale time here at the big stores like Harrods.

In case you are thinking about going to London, here's some tips from my trip so far. . .

1. If you have the time, riding the tour buses for the whole trip is a good way to see everything in London. We did the Big Bus tour company. You can get on a several stops, we did it at Victoria Train Station (on the other side of the road from the Victoria Underground station). It was £25. You can get on and off and had we started earlier in the day we may have. To ride the whole tour it takes about 4 hours. You can just do the main attractions by getting on somewhere around Piccadilly circus and riding to Victoria Station. That would probably just 1.5 to 2 hours. But we did see everything and the last 45 minutes or so of the tour we were in the dark, so got to see the city lit up. Hopefully though, you go on a warm day and sit up top. It was too cold this time of year to stay up top too long.

2. If you want to make calls back home or be able to keep in contact with others in your group, get a pay as you go phone as soon as you get to London. We went to the T-mobile store at 129 Victoria Street and for £20 (£10 for phone and £10 added on for calling) we each bought a phone and got minutes. They were having a promotion that if you sent a text message to a certain number that you got 120 minutes of call time to the US and Canada for £7.50 (it was subtracted from the £10 you added to your phone). Calls around London are about 8p per minute and text messages are 10p or 20p international. Costs/promotions change of course, but it is working out great for us to call around and home. And when you are done with the phone, you can give it to the next person traveling to England and they will just need to buy a SIM card and add money for calls.

Well, next time I plan a trip to another country, I'm making sure that the weather is at least 70 degrees at that time of year. It is freezing here, with daytime temps at 1 or 2 degrees C and evening is below 0. Yuck. I am surviving, just barely, but I am not sure about Laura. California girls aren't used to this kind of cold. Luckily for us we have long underwear, hats, coats and glovesl, but we may need to go on a shopping spree at Harrods!

Thursday we had big plans of course to get going and see the sights. We were going to hit the Tower of London first thing in the morning and then head to "The Globe" for a play. Well, the Tower will be another day as both of us had some trouble sleeping (jet lag catching up) and got off to a late start. No problem, there's so much more to do. We headed for The National Gallery, which is a free admission museum, for a few hours and checked out some italian paintings. Then there was time for lunch at the museum cafe.

Next we headed for The Globe theatre, modeled after the theatre that Shakespeare's plays were performed in. The Globe is on the south bank of the Thames, just a quick walk (and yes we walked quick to stay warm) from the London bridge tube station. Now, I can't say this is the smartest decision I've ever made, going to a play at an outdoor theatre in freezing weather, but definately not the stupidest. It was a fun play, basically a group a skits involving various shakespeare characters. We sat in the nose bleed section, to the left of the stage (for £10, or about $15), but were still able to see alot and enjoy the show. A few times the wind blew up and we huddled together in our seats, but it wasn't too bad.

After the play, seeing as it was New Year's eve, I dragged Laura to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner (we eventually found it, after getting lost in the tube station). That was enough for us and we raced back to the hotel to warm up and watch the fireworks on TV. We could even heard the explosions from our room, since we're a few miles from the Thames.

We took something to help us sleep after the night before and headed out the next day to the Natural History Museum, which is a short walk from the hotel. (We're in the South Kensington area of London). The Naural History Museum has all the usual fossils and stuffed criitters to look at. They've got a skeleton of a Diplodocus dinosaur in the entry, approx 26 meters long (or as I thought to myself, REALLY BIG). The whole museum really caters to kids (big and small) with lots of interactive exhibits.

After a quick lunch, we tubed it to Trafalger Square to watch the New Year's Day parade. It was crowded (and cold), but we managed to find something to stand on and were able to view part of the parade. We even were treated to seeing the Ghost Busters!

After freezing quite literally (poor Laura's fingers were ice cold, even through her gloves), we headed for the St. Martins-in-the-field Church for a hot meal in the Crypt. They've got a lovely deli down in the Crypt, amongst the tombs where you can get all sorts of things, including a nice hot pot of tea! It warmed us right up. We had a "queue" jumper trying to cut in front of me at the St. Martins-in-the-field cafe, but I easily dealt with him, when I unknownly elbowed his cup of hot chocolate and it spilled on his hand. Serves him right for trying to cut!

Then we endured the freeze and the tube again and headed back to the National History Museum (it's free too) to finish up what we didn't see and then ran to the next museum when it closed. The Victoria and Albert Museum is next door and has lots of art pieces. We enjoyed looking at the Fashion section with all sorts of dresses, some quite nice and some that reminded us of used tents.

We're back at the hotel now enjoying the warmth.

Something I've noticed here in the restaurants and cafes is that no one buses their tables. At Victoria train station, I can understand, since there are no "bins" available inside the station, but at the museums there are garbage bins, but everyone just leaves their used dishes and garbage on the table. Then the next group of people come along and push the trays aside and start eating. Eventually some one comes around to clear the tables.

Well my feet hurt from all the walking, so I will be heading up shortly to collaspe into bed. Tomorrow we are going to visit the Victoria and Albert some more and then head off to Kensington Palace, the previous home of Princess Diana.

By the way, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well. I'm finally in London with my friend Laura. I flew down to California and met up with her. We were scheduled to fly out of LAX at 9:20pm and wanted to get to the airport with enough time to get through security. Apparently though, the flight had been delayed 2 hours and we got there at 4pm, and were checked in and through security in another 30 minutes. No lines and only a couple stores to look at while we waited for 7 long hours! Ugh.

The plane was eventually ready, but unfortunately, since they didn't want us to have access to the inflight map, we also couldn't use the inflight entertainment system. But I planned on sleeping most of the way anyway, so not really a problem. At first we had a row to ourselves and I was going to sit in a different seat, but I stupidly waited until after take off to move and some other passanger got to the two extra seats next to me first and hogged them the rest of the flight.

We made it to Heathrow at 6pm on the 29th and I was held up at customs, we think because I had Egyptian and Jordian visas in my passport. I the ninth degree and then was allowed to pass. The Tube was fun, having to pull our large luggage up and down stairs (ever heard of an elevator?) and onto the tube. Plus I got stuck in the exit at the Glouchester station and some one had to help push my luggage through!

We're in a really nice area, close to two tube stations and groceries, banks and of course Starbucks. Haven't had one yet though.

Today (30th) was spent on the Big Bus sightseeing tour (after waking up at the leisurely time of 10:30). We did the whole bus tour and got to see the Tower of london, the Eye and the bank of the Thames at night. Beautiful lights!

I'll have more to write once we see some more sights. Tomorrow we are heading to "The Globe" for a play and then plan to spend the evening at the hotel rather then freeze our butts off watching the fireworks.