July 2 - 3

Wow. We made it. We're actually here. Six weeks with no work, no school, no computers. Is that necessarily a good thing?

We left Seattle just before midnight July 2 on a flight to Chicago. We figured we could sleep on the flight to Chicago, but we'd need to stay awake from Chicago to London. Yeah, that's likely.

I was asleep waiting to board in Seattle. I slept most of the way to Chicago and virtually all the way to London. The only time I remember being fully awake was when we realized it was too early in Chicago for either Starbucks or Cinnabon to be open. Agh!

We arrived in London on the third of July after 10pm. Heathrow is confusing. Really confusing. By the time we figured out where we were it was nearly 11. We caught the last bus toward our airport hotel only to find they didn't have our reservation.

Surname? Which name is that? John or Soltys? Neither? Shoot.

Eventually we found my name was now "Soltys John" according to the lovely Ibis hotel chain. Our room was clean, but oh-so-tiny. We were here for only one night before we headed to a bed and breakfast in London proper so we gave in to fatigue at long last.

July 4

Independence Day! In the US I'd certainly never seen so may American flags on display. It seems every US citizen on vacation in the UK thought it'd be funny to show the colors. Heck, I make fun, but even I was wearing my blue boxers with white stars! (No, there are no pictures of that.)

First off we headed to our bed and breakfast to find that, surprise surprise, no reservation. Crap. No problem, though, they had a room to spare. Disaster averted. Almost. The Starbucks just down the road had a tad bit of difficulty understanding my simple order: a venti mocha frappacino with two add-shots. How hard was that? Oh well.

We decided to spend our first day in the area between Parliament and Trafalgar Square. We came out of the Tube (like the use of the Londoner slang for the subway?) and towering above us was Big Ben. Behind us was the Thames. We waited for a few moments and suddenly the bells began ringing in the noon hour. Cool way to start the day, huh?

We tried to get into Westminster Abbey, but the line was too long in the 80 degree heat. We've got a couple of days yet, right?

We did get into the underground War Offices used by Churchill in the Second World War, though. A little Disneyesque, perhaps, complete with mannequins dressed as soldiers and the clocks stopped at the same time throughout the facility. Still, it was probably the most interesting stop of the day. I'm a WWII nut, anyway, so seeing where so much of the war was directed was fabulous.

The House of Commons was... interesting. I can't imagine the House of Representatives or the Senate would be all that much fun. They're all politicians, right? We sat for a few minutes as the Members of Parliament spoke passionately about something or another. Oh well.

We swung into the National Gallery and saw some good paintings, but after walking around for so long in heat we were unaccustomed to we were more interested in the quality of the air conditioning system.

Months ago we bought tickets for The Reduced Shakespeare Company's "Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged." All the Bard's plays in 90 minutes. Absolutely wonderful. The air conditioning, I mean. The performance was great, too. (Can you tell we were a little warm?)

The best part of the play might have been unscripted. To help portray Ophelia's distress the actors (there were only three) invited a member of the audience on stage to portray Ophelia's Ego. Straight off the boat from Germany, Ego spoke only a tiny bit of English. A large man, he kept the audience and the actors crying with laughter as he ran back and forth across the stage screaming.

After the play ended we dragged our poor, tired, over-heated butts all the way across London to our room. The room was on the fourth floor of the house turned B&B so it was a little... toasty. Forget the sheets. I'll just sleep on top. You don't want to know what I wore.

July 5

As disciples of Rick Steves (you know, that nerdy looking travel guy on TV with the leather jacket that you can be damn sure doesn't fit in a daypack) we dutifully read ahead and found that we needed to get to the Tower of London early, ignore all the distractions, and get straight to the Crown Jewels if we wanted to avoid the lines. He sure was right.

On a mission we were from the Tube to the gate past the free tour past the towers to the home of the jewels. No one else was there. We slipped past the school class watching the poorly-made movies from the 80s in the Disneyland-style, back-and-forth line and then... sparkle sparkle. Wouldn't it be ok if we took just a couple of those diamonds? We could build our own little Tower of North Bend.

I think Amy got a bigger kick out of them than I did. After the conveyor belt took her past once she ran back to the start and did it again. And why no pictures? Security, of course.

Now that the Jewels had been seen we were free to visit the rest of the Tower. It turns out there are a whole bundle of towers in the Tower. Who knew? Not me. Every time I turned around: "Wow! Another tower!"

We got back to the front gate to found another free tour starting up. (I know you were worried we'd missed our opportunity to take the free tour when we rushed to the Jewels. Sorry to trouble you.) The tours are led by Yeoman Warders who had all the bad jokes drilled into their heads when they were but soldiers in Her Majesty's armed forces. My favorite was when he told us the portcullis was 400 years old and so was the rope holding it up so we shouldn't dawdle. Ha ha.

We wandered over toward the Tower Bridge and found some lunch. Yum. It was some sort of organic chain deli thing that at least had a relatively bland tuna sandwich. (Yeah, I know it comes from the water and that breaks my rules, but Tuna's not really fish since it comes from a can.)

We went from the Tower to Leister Square to see if we could find tickets at the half-price ticket booth. Many moons ago it was a tiny booth where people would try to hawk their leftover tickets for that night's shows. Unfortunately, the only thing we could find tickets for was Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Beautiful Game." A musical about soccer, er, football? How... fun.

On the upside at Leister Square we found a worthwhile Starbucks which actually made a good frappacino. Tasty. From there it was to the British Museum. The museum was pretty empty. It seems like everybody else was outside enjoying the weather so we had it all to ourselves.

We looked about and realized that unless we hit only the highlights the likelihood of becoming mummies ourselves was rather high. We toured around and saw the Rosetta Stone, oodles of Egyptian artifacts, and we even saw where old Karl Marx sat in the Reading Room. We didn't sit in that seat.

Unfortunately, the entire experience was a tad flat. It was great to see all the stuff and the history that permeated the buildings was incredible, but perhaps it was the heat or jet lag or all those goofy accents. Whatever it was, we cut our visit short after we had seen the requirements.

We headed toward the theatre district in search of food and found a little fish and chips shop called "The Rock and Sole Palaice" and that's not a misspelling. What could be more British that fish and chips? I had a beef and onion pie which Amy described as "bland" and "homey." Tasty.

After dinner I put on pants again for the theatre. (If I wasn't wearing pants all day what was I wearing?) The weather was still hot and the theatre air conditioning wasn't particularly effective. Our seats were in the first row, but way off to the right so we got an interesting perspective on the show.

While we were in the theatre it actually rained a bit, but that just made it muggier and produced some puddles for our commute back to the B&B. The Tube station we had to use was a deep one that used elevators. I think all the shows let out at about the same time so we were packed in like the proverbial sardines. Not my most pleasant moment.

Back at the room I was quickly sound asleep atop the covers in spite of the heat. Poor Amy didn't fall asleep as quickly and had to deal with me rolling around in search of a cool spot and snoring away.

July 6

The morning marked my first time in an Internet cafe. I'm pretty sure I'm not a fan. Having instant access at home via a wireless connection has really spoiled me. The concept of only getting access in someone else's facility and having to pay by the minute is a strange one. Heck, I haven't paid by the minute since I was a Compuserv user in junior high!

Our first stop of the day was Buckingham Palace which was actually quite disappointing from an architectural standpoint. I was expecting something far more elaborate and ornate from the outside. I'm sure it's plenty impressive inside, but outside... thpth.

The changing of the guard was what we were there to see, but the crowds had gotten there first. Amy climbed up on a wall so she could take some pictures, but we quickly decided we'd be better served if we pushed our way to the gates. Once we got there Amy noticed a couple of people watching from one of the Palace doors. Good Lord! It's the princes! Can you believe it? Excitement rippled through the crowd as cameras were diverted from the guards resplendent in their uniforms and pointed squarely at the young men across the courtyard.

Except, oh, well, never mind. It turns out they were just random nobodies. Of course they were on the privileged side of the fence so perhaps they weren't really nobodies, but they weren't the somebodies originally thought.

After doing the touristy thing outside the Palace we did the most touristy thing we could think of. We bought tickets for a double-decker tour bus. I know, I know. However, before you condemn me as one of those folks driving around Seattle in a converted DUKW let me just say it was actually really cool. Besides, we were just using it for transportation. (Are you going to buy that?)

We took it a short ride to Westminster Abbey which we had abandoned a few days earlier due to a long line. Even though the line was shorter we still had time to wander all around the Abbey before we got in.

Once we did get inside I was amazed to find it wasn't at all what I had pictured. There were soaring ceilings with graceful, gothic arches, beautiful stained glass windows casting rainbows everywhere, but what really blew me away were the walls and walls of memorials.

The Abbey was built eons ago and it now holds the tombs of the British royalty all the way back to Edward the Confessor. The tombs were either amazingly intricate in their decoration or shockingly simple. The simpler the tomb, the older it was. Virtually all the tombs were within touching distance, though this was strongly discouraged. I never thought I would be so close to something nearly 1,000 years old if it wasn't natural.

As wondrous as the royal tombs were the ones I liked the best were the markers for every day people. The Abbey's monks that died during the plague are buried in the cloisters as is the organist. Even a long-serving plumber has a plaque on the wall. There are also prime ministers and RAF pilots (near bomb damage from WWII) and the tomb of the unknown warrior.

All in all, the Abbey was spectacular. It was well worth the price of admission, the somewhat sizeable wait, and the indignity of walking around with a thousand other tourists each with their own slightly unsynchronized world thanks to personal audio guides.

After the Abbey we struggled for a bit to find the bus we wanted. In the end we did make our way to St. Paul's Cathedral which was just closed. Although it was very impressive from the outside not getting in means it was quickly well on its way to being relegated to that portion of memory best described as "neat, big, old thing I saw in London called... um... don't know."

We took the bus tour around and around and around the far flung bits of London and saw a variety of odd sights we would otherwise have missed. My great entertainment when the drunk tour guide wasn't babbling on about something inane was searching for Starbucks. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to stop at any of them so I'm left with just my pictures.

Back at Trafalgar Square we met up with a walking tour that was part of our tour bus package. This one was all about scary stories and pubs. Odd combination, huh? Loads of prissy Brits already well into their pints made comments that didn't fit with the British reputation for politeness. On the upside, we did pass yet another Starbucks. (Tired of seeing pictures of Starbucks? Cha! You haven't seen even half of the pictures I took.)

At the end of the tour we wound up near Covent Gardens. As the tour was breaking up we wound up near a couple from the Atlanta area who had just flown in that day. Although they were in their fifties we decided to head to a restaurant nearby for some food and yet more drinks. The female portion of the couple was a teacher so inevitably the discussion turned toward education. Surprise, surprise.

Once again, we stumbled back to our room (well, I stumbled, Amy is remarkably better at holding her alcohol than I am) and climbed into bed for the last night in London.

Did you make it? Never fear, London was by far the most intense stop on the Euromoosefish tour. So many things to see and do meant that this page was really long. Next up is York. Enjoy.