Mike shows off "The Cone of Silence." Also known at the tiny little shower.
The Story of London
(There was mayhem, a mixed up hotel room, and a fire)
We left on a bus from Schinnen at o’dark thirty in the morning and headed towards Calais, France where our bus would drive onto a large freight train car and we would be whisked under the English Channel, arriving in England in less than 30 minutes. This portion of the trip went surprisingly well. The “Chunnel” trip was pretty cool. We had one train car to ourselves so we could get off the bus and stretch our legs a bit. Once on the other side we boarded the bus and headed off towards London. I had a 2 year old brat sitting behind me who insisted on playing with the drop down table and then kicking the chair when his 14 year old sister told him to stop. Their parents were behind them. He had a portable DVD player without headphones (which is VERY discourteous and downright rude!! Maybe I’ll play a porno without wearing headphones for him to hear next time..ha ha). If I hear another fucking “Blues Clues” song again I think I might just snap. The worst part is that the parents let the 14 year old play the mom so the kid has very little disciple and they thought that everyone just loved their little brat…uh..boy. I did promise myself that if I am in the same situation again I will request that the brat sits behind the parents so that they can deal with the pulling and kicking.
We already knew that we weren’t getting the hotel that was originally booked as the agent (and I use that term loosely) “accidentally” canceled the groups’ reservation at a Holiday Inn Express, but promised our guide that we were booked in the “supreme” rooms of a “compatible” hotel. That agent was a big fat liar!! We ended up further out and in a very industrial area of The Docklands at the Custom House Hotel. When we arrived at 1pm we were informed that the rooms wouldn’t be ready until 2pm, however once all 50 of us were standing in their lobby suddenly they began to issue rooms.
I can’t describe the room as “quaint” simply because that implied that there was some sort of charm or eclectic uniqueness about it…and there wasn’t. The room was flat out TINY…we could not pass each other at the end of the bed and the bathroom was so small that I could sit on the toilet, brush my teeth over the sink, soak a foot in the shower, and kick the other foot out the door to rest on the end of the bed. The shower itself was so small that we started to laugh when we saw it. It was cruise ship tiny and resembled a large cylinder. The hard plastic door was rounded so once inside you were truly in what Mike and I dubbed “the cone of silence.” (That is a “Get Smart” reference for those of you who don’t know.) The TV didn’t work, but that was something we could live with and besides we were in London…well, near London and we intended to make the best of things.
After a quick change of clothes Mike and I headed across the street to the DLR (Docklands Light Rail) station to head into the city. Marty our guide came after us and informed us that many people were very unhappy with the rooms and wanted to change hotels. So we were basically stuck until a decision was made. While we knew that the room quality was not as good as a Holiday Inn Express, we just wanted to move on and enjoy our stay. We ended up eating a late lunch in the hotel which had the best lamb curry that I have ever had, (not surprising since the managers, front desk, and kitchen staff were primarily of Indian descent…slurpie Indian, not casino Indian) but of course they had run out of baguettes so Mike had to settle for a burger instead of the meal he really wanted. Mike has been pretty much of a “Charlie Brown” in these types of situations as places always seem to always be out of what he wants.
After a good 90 minutes it was finally determined that the agent could not book 25 rooms in London for a good price…not surprising since it was a Friday night. So Mike and I were off to explore. We walked around Piccadilly Circus and then headed to the West End to see “The Lion King.” I saw it a few years ago in Dallas, but it was worth seeing again. I HIGHLY recommend it to any theater fans as the staging alone is simply magnificent. After the play we grabbed some baguette sandwiches and headed back on our 30 minute journey back to the hotel. Once back in our room we discovered that the reading lamp for Mike’s bed didn’t work and we either had to have all of the lights in the room on or completely off.
The next day we woke up too late for our continental breakfast (which we discovered on the next day was worth missing) and headed into central London for a bite and the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill museum. That was amazing! The War Rooms were located under a large retail store and the self guided audio tour was very well done. After the war the area had been sealed up, so when they were preparing the museum they discovered someone’s personal sugar ration stashed away in their desk, which was now on display. The museum had many personal items of Churchill’s, my favorite being a maroon velvet one piece leisure suit type of “romper” that he liked to wear. He had many made in all different colors.
Of course Mike and I had to keep quoting “European Vacation,” every time we saw Big Ben and Parliament. If you remember, Clark got stuck in a huge multi-lane traffic circle and kept going around it for hours, “Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament.”
After that we headed off to the South Bank which is across the Thames from…Big Ben and Parliament. We dodged the rain here and there strolling through a great Saturday market with all kinds of goodies and then went to The Beer Warf, which, while the beer was good, simply overstated, too trendy, and could have been any brew pub located in the states. We were intending to visit the sister bar “Vinopolis” but after the un-English atmosphere at the Beer Warf we decided to move on. So we finished our beers, strolled under the London Bridge and headed out to take our London Eye ride. The Eye was built for the 2000 new tears celebration and was so popular that it was decided to keep it running. There were about 20 people in our capsule and the full rotation takes 30 minutes. There was on girl who after about 5 minutes discovered that she was terrified of height and spent the entire trip sitting on the bench, sobbing, nose running, with her head buried into a family member’s chest. During our flight I took some great photos of Big Ben and Parliament.
To top off the evening were took the tube into Camden Town for a pub crawl and walking tour. Camden Town is known for its daily street markets, eclectic stores, and the very “diverse” people who frequent them. It is also the home of earlier Irish immigrants and later a raging music scene. We only went to two pubs, but our guide was very interesting and informative and we both really enjoyed the walk…even in the rain. The most interesting thing is that we were the only American on the tour. The rest of the group of 14 was from the UK. Some were even Londoners who wanted to get to know their city better. The tour company, London Walks has around 40 tours so it could take awhile. Mike and I both want to return and take a few more of the tours. The funniest part of the tour was when we walked past a group of “punk rockers” who had a “charming lady” in their midst who was making cow noises as we walked by. She also began yelling something as we crossed the street. Too bad she didn’t realize that in order to insult people you have to be coherent.
On our third day my feet were so freakin’ sore I thought that I had been hobbled. The lesson here is that running shoes, while good for work, do NOT make good walking shoes. There REALLY is a difference and I had to learn it the hard way. In the morning we sampled the less than adequate breakfast that was included with our room price and then we were off to the Royal Air Force museum.
If you like air planes this is the place to visit. The collection is extensive and indoors so you can avoid the ever present rain. They had everything from balloons, simple single passenger gliders, to a Harrier jet. There was a burned out WWII bomber and all kinds of whirlybirds. The best part was the gift store where Mike found an AWACS model for the “adult collector.” The best part was, as Mike kept saying, “the rotodome turns.” Talk about a kid in a candy store. What made it even more amusing is that as we rode the train back into London there was a guy across from us that kept eyeing the box. I don’t think that he really know what kind of plane that it was, but all he knew is that he didn’t have one and he wanted it.
Our next stop was the British Museum where all of the good stuff that had been “looted” from Egypt was contained. Well, our guide in Egypt felt that way, it was not a view shared by the staff at the museum. In fact most of the “good” Egyptian stuff (gold and jewels) seems to be in private collections as I saw very little of the shiny stuff on our visit. What the museum had was fantastic, but it consisted of statues, pottery, and wall reliefs. The only part that really was exciting for me was to see the Rosetta Stone. The library’s reading room was pretty spectacular and I really enjoyed the exhibit on death in different cultures. There were some great “Day of the Dead” sculptures from Mexico that hung from the ceiling and I got to see the crystal skull that was once believed to be an ancient Aztec artifact. It turns out that it was a hoax and most likely carved with modern machinery in Europe, sent to Mexico for sale, and eventually purchased by the British museum in 1897 from Tiffany’s. It wasn’t until 2004 that the skull was viewed under an electron microscope which proved that the Brazilian quartz had been carved with a rotation wheel and not hand tools.
http://www.artspace2000.com/Art_Impact/January%20_05/mystery_of_the_british_museum.htmWe made a quick trip back to our hotel to drop off our packages as I had helped the museum by purchasing a few nice books and some great Celtic pewter earrings. Besides, Mike was really worried that someone might take his plane (ha ha). We then headed down to the Tower Bridge for a medieval dinner show. While walking from the tube station we missed our turn and ended up taking an un-planned random tour of the neighborhood. What was surprising is how clean and well maintained everything was. The region that we were in was the dockyards where the ivory was brought in and stored so I figured that it would have been very dirty and run down. However urban renewal has turned much of the area into high scale condos, shopping boutiques, and a small harbor for private boats. It was just beautiful and the architecture reminded me of an upscale Lahaina, Maui with a whaling village “feel.” We ended up circling around and finding the banquet area. While we waited for the building to open we noticed a strange little man with long scraggly brown hair, a wooly bully beard, and a cheap brown suit. He looked like a homeless guy who had been in court or the Uni-bomber. Mike wanted to get in line early just to make sure that we didn’t have to sit next to this guy. Once the door opened the Beefeater lead us downstairs into a very large cellar with rows of tables and seated us. Of course the event had assigned seating and “wooly bully” was seated at the table next to Mike. Our other immediate tablemates were two British women and on the other side of “wooly” a young couple for South Carolina. We had a blast with the couple and all four of us got into the mood of having dinner with King Henry VIII and his serving wenches. Our side of the cellar was defiantly the loudest and participated in the banter with the actors more than the 35 or so people across from us. At full capacity over 500 people can be seated for an event but I think that it was more fun just having two sections opposite of each other.
It turned out that wooly was a German who spoke little English and didn’t care to converse much with my bad German. He went to the bathroom so much that our serving wench even asked us if we knew what was wrong. She came to the conclusion that he was some brilliant professor that was working on some sort of time-space continuum equation so he didn’t have time to converse or really function as a member of society. It was just so weird that a non-English speaker would attend and event like that alone.
Mike was recruited to become a dancing wench for part of the show and had to don a bonnet and apron. He danced as instructed, but was sure to “flash” underneath as he moved. Henry even checked out the new serving wenches rear-end and the Beefeater was severely disappointed when he looked behind the apron front for boobies. I danced with the ladies later in the evening, which is not a good idea when you are eating a large meal. We were served all you could eat bread, soup, salad, roasted chicken and potatoes, then a strawberry torte. The beer and wine flowed freely, but I suspect that it had a lower alcohol content than would you would normally get in a restaurant. The show also included jugglers and a singing Queen Anne. All in all, it was a blast and I would recommend it to everyone.
We got back to our room late and crashed. At about 3am I heard a voice say something like, “I’m just going into this room here” and the door to our room suddenly opened. Now remember that this is a tiny room so by just sitting up in my bed I had full view of the door and the hotel employee who had just entered.
“May I help you,” I asked. It’s seems polite at first, but trust me, there was sarcasm in my voice.
He answered, “I’m with reception.”
“Again, may I help you?” My voice was firm but I suspect that the sarcasm was lost on him.
He answered, “I’m with reception.”
I was getting a little confused at this point so I panic thinking that we had overslept and that out bus was getting ready to leave. So I asked the next logical question. “Is this a wake up call?”
He answered, “No, I’m with reception.”
I was getting a bit miffed at this point and was going to let him really have it, probably with another “May I help you line,” but suddenly Mike yelped very loudly in his sleep and popped up. I told Mike that everything was ok and to go back to sleep. The yelp seemed to really startle our visitor and he said “sorry” about 3 times before he finally shut the door probably mumbling something about being from reception. The weird thing is that I always, always lock our hotel door when we are in the room and of course the one time I don’t some moron from reception barges in.
The next morning I did go down to reception to complain. There I discovered that the hotel thought that we were in a different room, which explained why we didn’t get maid service on the first day and we probably only got service on the second day because we hung out the “make up my room” sign. Since our electronic key cards worked all we could figure it that someone hit the wrong number somewhere on the computer. We also figured that our visitor, as a night employee, was checking the empty rooms to make sure that they were ready to go the next day…or to take a nap. Perhaps he wanted to spoon with Mike.
We had a few hours left in London so we took our bus downtown, got stuck in traffic (of course) and then rode the tube to Piccadilly for some shopping. We had pondered taking a short visit to the Tower of London, but it’s pretty pricy to get in to so when we go there again we wanted to be able to really enjoy it. Besides we had both been there twice on separate visits to London. We did a little shopping at the Virgin Mega store then dined on American cuisine for lunch. We went to TGI Friday’s, which I can excuse simply because we don’t get to go there often. I did feel compelled to explain to the waiter that we were not in fact visiting from the US, but from Germany so going to TGI Fridays was indeed a real treat. He laughed and said that he understood. He also mentioned that they get many Americans at that location. I guess that people just want to go to a place where they know what the food will be like…beside the Brits aren’t exactly known for their fine cuisine. You can only eat so much fish and chips!
We stopped at a local baguette place for dinner on the bus ride home than headed back to the bus. It took a while to get everyone back on the bus on time as the driver could only wait in one location for a few minutes and of course some people were late. We got out of London around 3pm and headed for the Chunnel. As we neared the location Marty noticed that an electric information sign noted that the Chunnel was closed. Of course he couldn’t get any real information by calling the info line on his cell phone. We were still clueless after we had pulled into the bus stating area and he had gone inside for the skinny. We did get 5 pound coupons for food inside the little shopping area, but all of the food places had been picked over by the hundreds of people that had been waiting there since 1pm. We resigned ourselves to a long uninformed wait.
The suggestion of taking a ferry back came up in conversation, but a Chunnel employee had informed Marty that, due to an over crowding of trucks, the ferries weren’t taking tour busses. About an hour and a half or so later we were informed that we had to meet back at the bus. It seems that a Dutch gal on our trip was VERY tenacious and got the truth from an employee who was a fellow Dutchie. First, the fire was cause by an air conditioning unit on a refrigerated truck traveling on the Chunnel train. Second, the ferries were accepting tour busses and their employee was very surprised when the question even came up. The lady had made the Chunnel employee call at least two of the ferry companies to confirm the rumor. So with our guide’s approval, we were booked on an evening ferry. So we drove off to Dover…and yes I got to see the famous white cliffs up close.
We didn’t get onto the ferry until around 9 pm which left us with about a 2 hour wait in the little shopping area at the port. The best part of that was the “wonderful little boy” has a complete and total meltdown. It was so bad that dad had to take him outside and almost hold him down. Mike and I just laughed!! Once the bus drove on the ferry we were free to enjoy the ship and I had yet another great meal of curried lamb. They had some Duty Free shops, but there wasn’t anything that I even wanted and I could get cheaper prices at the NATEX on the NATO base here at home. Of course the Europeans were snatching up booze like crazy.
Around midnight we arrived in France and drove for 4 more hours just to get back to Schinnen. By the time we got home we were just exhausted and ended up finally getting into bed at 5am. Later that morning I called in “tired” for work. Gotta love my job (grin). All in all we had a great trip and would go again in a heart beat. Our next planned trip is Paris over Valentine’s Day, but we are looking at going to Austria around Christmas.
