N and N's New Adventure: June 2012

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Day 27 June 21. Out of order..sorry

Thursday June 21, 2012

Day 27 of our second European Adventure.

Day began in our cubicle—showers, breakfast muffins and then off to Victoria Station to begin a tube day. We began at Victoria and took a tube north, a very crowded train. Then got off and transferred to the Picadilly Line and east to Picadilly Circus for a quick look around. We decided to walk so we could find a coffee shop and take a short break. But first there was the London Bliss souvenir shop with every kind of keepsake you might desire. Across the street was the London M&M store, we had been in one in New York and tried this one as well. It was fun with portraits of the red M&M as Henry the VII or the Green as Elizabeth I. It seems the British have more tolerance for fun than we do. Finally, a coffee shop, we shared a coffee and rested out feet. Then on to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Here we went in, but the admission price was 14 pounds each and having spent nothing on fun stuff earlier decided against the expenditure on serious stuff. We walked in as far as one could without a ticket and then left. We stopped at Garfunkel’s for lunch with a small salad bar and a jacket potato, again resting our feet.
After lunch we went to the London Museum which dealt with the history of the city from pre-Roman times until the upcoming Olympics. Much of the early history section had just been redone for the Olympics crowd and will open tomorrow, June 22. We did see some fragments of Roman and Medieval London. The most interesting exhibits were the Great Plague and the Great Fire of the 1300’s and the 1600’s. We meandered through not really giving the museum enough time, but we saw as much or as little as we wished. We walked to a central line tube station and took the central line west until we could transfer back to the Picadilly Line and then west to Harrod’s.
Before going into the store we found a place for a lemonade and took a rest. It had begun raining again, so we relaxed for a few moments inside. Then we went across the street to Harrod’s. First of all, it was packed, probably with people a great deal richer than we are. We walked through departments on the ground floor for purses, perfume, cosmetics, and a food store, all packed with people. We went upstairs because Neil was planning a trip to the toy department, but its preparation would not be complete until July 23. We did look through a number of departments, jewelry no one should be able to afford, a single china dinner plate on sale for 169 pounds, a vase--an original art object for 16,500 pounds, until we came to the Harrods souvenir shop. Here we bought a Harrods rubber duck for Joey and a Harrods stuffed bear also for Joey, Interestingly they would take American cash converting it to pounds in the computer register. After a brief stop in the book shop which was long on coffee table books and short on mysteries and science fiction, but otherwise like any other book shop, we decided to call it a day.
We went by the C1 bus to Victoria, had dinner, picked up some Cokes at Sainsbury’s and returned to the easy /hotel cubicle. On the bus ride we discovered that the next day the bus drivers would be taking an industrial action over overtime pay during the Olympics and would not being driving busses tomorrow. Yes, a nice way to say Strike. This changed our plans as we knew the crush on the tube would be worst, there would be no busses, and taxies might be in short supply. Our plan was to get up early and take the tube before the big rush. This necessitated packing tonight, and an early bedtime. And so to a little TV, packing, and on to bed.

17,917 Neil Steps

Harrods

Piccadilly Underground

That is old

Inside Harrodsburg

London M and M store

Bridge over a street to the London Museum

Window & tv for which we paid extra

A wall protecting the London justice halls

M and M store

Victoria Station

The tube right after the train left

Harrods

Easy hotel.com

Harrods doorman

Modern mixes with old

Masonic temple

Inside the London Museum

easy hotel.com

London Museum

Piccadilly Circus. Times Square of London

Some nice fellow thought we should both be in the picture.

St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's

Our bathroom pod. easyhotel.com

Escalators in the underground.. Very long

Picadilly Circus

Harrodsburg. No price tags on these handbags

Day 28. June 22

Friday June 22, 2012

The 28th day of our second European Adventure

Up early this morning as per plan. Sometime about 5:30, but the birds were singing and the sky was light, grey but light. We had a quick wash and dressed, ready to go. The mom check of the cubicle took only 10 seconds as there was no place to hide/lose anything. Check out was a thank you/hope you enjoyed your stay. The walk to Victoria was quick, bright, and dry. Down into the tube, it is only a little busy at 6:15 am, and a ride to Euston Station. We sat outside cooling off from the ride in the warm tube. We shared a coffee and waited for the Krispie Crème Shop to open. We had promised some Krispie crème donuts for Pete. By about 7:30 the shop opened, we bought a dozen, and moved inside to the 1st class lounge where we had more coffee, juice to take our pills, and a banana. They had coffee, tea, cold pop, Danish pastries, and fruit. At 9:25 our train was given a platform number, and we headed to number five. Car H, was fairly empty as we pulled out right on time.
The first part of the journey was a high speed jaunt through London and its environs. They came by with coffee or tea and took our orders for breakfast which was served on china plates. After breakfast, more tea or coffee, and the first stop, only a few people got on, but the next portion of the trip was much slower, more stops, more passengers, and more built up area to go through. Almost immediately, it was time for lunch. Lunch was a cold drink, a sandwich, crisps (potato chips) and dessert. Lunch was more paper and less china. We picked up speed as we moved through the north of England and the lowlands of Scotland. We also picked up rain—apparently a great deal of rain as the news the next morning reported flooding and later in the week some service North to Scotland was disrupted. We arrived safely at Glasgow Central, and at the last moment—getting off---met a woman and her son from Iowa City—they sat only a few seats down from us for half the trip. We stopped for a coffee in the station as there were too many people or too few cabs immediately after we arrived and we were furthest from the station as we had been closest to the station in London.
We did get a cab and motored out to Cecil Street. We presented Joey with her duck and her bear from Harrodsburg, then we piled our dirty clothes in a corner and decided to order pizza for dinner. Pizza, American style, and a beer then some conversation and some TV before we adjourned to bed .

4133 Neil Steps

Woman Olympic torch runner at one of the stations

Northern England

Our train in Glasgow Central Station

Euston Station in London & Krispie Kreme

Our train Central Station

The train

Cranes in London

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Day 26, June 20

Day 26 Wednesday June 20, 2012

Today is the trip to Windsor and Windsor Castle. We walked to Victoria Station, got our train tickets to Windsor, got money from the magic of ATM's, and took the 507 Bus to Waterloo Train Station.

At Waterloo we got a cup of coffee from Costa and stood in the station waiting for the first train after 9:30 which was at 9:58. It was rather fun looking around at people today. There were men in the usual suits, but there were also men in morning coats....complete with the tails and top hats. There were ladies dressed in very fancy cocktail type dresses with impossibly high heals. Some of the shoes even had platforms and then higher heals. The center of attraction, however, was the hats. There were ladies with all kinds of hats.....small ones with feathers sticking up and out, hats that looked like plates stuck on the sides of their heads, hats as big as a large pizza with one side squished so that it stood up on their heads. Just imagine the hats from the last royal wedding on tv, and you can picture the hats we saw today. The event was part of the Royal Ascot Horse Race. I am not sure, but I think it takes place over several days.

I just looked it up. There is a very stringent dress code for the Royal Ascot. The strictness depends upon the ticket that is purchased. Anyway, those going to the Royal Ascot proved to be quite entertaining.

The other funny event was the nice British lady who stopped and asked me very politely about one of the trains. I was able to help her. Apparently, I looked less scary than some of the dressed up people.

There is an abundance of people in London this year. There is also an abundance of police officers. Every where you look you see both. We have found that getting in the way of commuters on the sidewalks and in the tube can result in rudeness from normally very polite British people.

Our train's platform was posted, and we made our way to the train. It was a pleasant ride to Windsor from London. We were able to see the sides of buidlings that we had seen from the Thames River the other day. British trains are not slow. They have schedules to keep. We arrived in Windsor at precisely the time the schedule said we would. We went outside the station and started our trek (up hill, of course,) to the castle. It is rather hard to miss.

We walked right up to the ticket station. Yes, there is a cost. Then we waited in line with a number of other people. The ticket line is stopped while security catches up. The tickets with our concession rate (polite talk for senior rates) was 26 pounds. We joined the line for security which is just like security in airports. The Queen was in residence this week.

We picked up our little hand held tour guides. I should have checked mine because it didn't work. However, rather than go back and get behind a horde of people, we went on and shared Neil's hand held device. My major objective was to see Queen Mary's Dollhouse so that is where we headed. Their was a line by the time we got there, but it was not too long. We waited maybe 30 minutes. They had the tour split into 2 lines.....the dollhouse and the state rooms and the second line for which there was no line....just the staterooms.

The dollhouse was wonderful. It is 3 stories high with a cellar underneath. It has a formal garden underneath. All the furniture in the house is scaled so that 1 inch equals 1 foot. The lights work. The bathrooms and the kitchen have running water. The toilets flush. It took skilled artisans three years to build the house and its furnishings. The cars in the garage all work as well. The gold and silver is real as are the jewels in the crown jewels. There were people who rushed around it.....those who can say they saw it, but they did not really see it. Then there were the people like me who held up the line and really, really enjoyed it.

From the dollhouse the tour leads into a section of toys that belonged to the Queen and her sister. Specifically, there are two beautiful dolls whose wardrobes were designed by French designers....really beautiful clothes and shoes. The next stop...staterooms....

Pictures by the way were not allowed. The dollhouse was kept in realtive darkness. The staterooms were not, but still no photography was allowed.

The tour first led to the china room which was as big as my whole kitchen...perhaps bigger. They had samples of the Royal China. There were a lot of different sets...very old sets. Most of them were quite elaborate in their decorations. From there we went into an armory room.....need a sword or suit of armor....then check out this room. There was another room full of armaments later. The royal dining room had the biggest carpet ever woven in India. The table as placed would seat 60 plus people. When a formal dinner is held the table is moved to another room and extensions are placed to allow for 124 people to be seated. The rooms were large and filled with beautiful paintings and very elaborate and ornate furniture. One room where guests waited or the people dresed to be knighted had a table about 3 feet long by 2.5 feet wide and 39 inches high with a mirror attached made completely of silver. It impressed me. In the Knight of the Garter room which is where they also set up the long table, the names of the those kinghted were engraved in the walls with a number which matched their shield which could be found on the ceiling or on the wall. Some of the shields were painted white because the person had been found guilty of a crime against the crown.

We finished the state rooms and went out to the courtyard for a break. The Queen's cars were brought around to the private apartments to collect the Queen and her entourage for the trip to the Royal Ascot horse race. I think her horse came in second. Since the cars were loaded under a closed portico, we left. We went toward the exit. We stopped to go through St. George's Chapel. It was another beautiful and old church. We walked on Henry VIII and Anne Bolyn's burial spots. There were a lot of other important people buried as well.

We left the castle, looked at the line waiting to get in and decided we had done well to arrive when we had.

We stopped at McDonalds for a quick lunch. We chose not to spend much more time in Windsor which seemed to be more tourist than history. Legoland is in Windsor, but we really didn't want to spend the ticket price to go. We walked back toward the station with a side trip down to the Thames. We saw a herd or whiteness of swans....a whole bunch gathered along the edge of the river to get the food that was being thrown.

We rode the train back to Waterloo and went in search of a book store that Pete had told Neil about.....all the books and materials had to do with transportation. It was a rather amazing store. We went back to Waterloo and found the 211 bus back to Victoria.

We stopped at Victoria Station. We went upstairs to the Garfield Restaurant and ate. After dinner we walked back to the easyhotel.com and collapsed.

Steps today: 16,820