London, United Kingdom
September 29-30, 2011
Trip to Europe 2011
The tripping begins. Sept 28, 2011 the first leg from medford, oregon MFR to SFO begins on a tiny prop plane that was “delayed” because of “weather” on an 88F degree day in San Francisco. Some kind of invisible fog that only forms when skies are clear. From the air I may be able to see the standard brown haze that covers the US, but through the invisible weather i can see a ship out on the pacific 100 miles out, and the invisible weather continues to the horizon.
21:07 PST – Flight was supposed to take off to LHR at 19:20, now supposed to fly out at 21:20, and no boarding yet. The good time of arrival in London has passed, and now it will be a “sleep in” with lack of sleep. The jet lag will be bad, bummer. The few hours before the show we are going to on the first night has become much a shorter time. I hear a crying baby across the room, how close will it be on the plane? It is in the seat directly in front of me, no surprise there.
During unexpected layover found a non-chain type japanese restaurant Sankaku in terminal 3. Didn’t have anything raw and the cooked food was good priced and edible. I am not a fan of airport food and the price gouging that happens, so it was a good value.
22:00 PST – Plane now waiting for papers on the runway,,, then finally in the air. The main thing I have noticed about the airport is that everyone seems quiet, nobody seems happy, and when they find out of more of a delay, they don’t complain, they just say to ho there with, oh, we are going to get in so late. On the plane it has been completely quiet, me and Tim are the only two people talking at all, and as most people know, I don’t talk loud enough for the person next to me to hear when the isn’t back ground noise.
They slapped down the beef product, wish mashed white tubers and carrots cut to the same shape as the green beans the were married with. There were 3 flavors I could not recognize, so I mixed them up well, poured some virgin mary mix on and at some. Luckily with the extra time before the flight we found a cheap japanese restaraunt in the terminal, normal humane pricing, and the food was not bad.
The Ambien and the Lorazapam are now kicking in at 00:31 PST its 08:31 GMT, bummer.
Maybe the pills that let me sleep are taken all day by all these people. they are too quiet. weird.
1500 london time, breakfast on the plane, bad cookie, unripe banana, yogurt from buffalo (must be good) and some redish jelly stuffed flat danish. I ate a banana, crunchy.
Conformity says I must stay in me seat and not use the loo.
Landing soon around 16:15 GMT
Amazingly there was no major jetlag, it seems the layover helped a lot, there was some but not the major amount of it that normally happens.
29-sep-11
Since the late arrival in to London, there was only time for checkin to the hotel, quick shower before a run to the tube to get to the Waterloo rail station where a play was being put on in the old Eurostar train platform. The show “The Railway Children” was done really well, as far as the staging and mechanics and the acting was only lacking in some levels vocal audio over the background music. The special effects of a train going through the station was done really well with a real steam engine coming in at the intermission. Although it would have been nice to see the second half of the show, we decided due to jet lag feeling approaching and with the time lost during the plane delay, we needed to move on and eat.
We ended up in china town, finding one of the only places with street seating for great people watching. The hotel that night was mostly pretty quiet for a London hotel, it was really nice. Great convienient location. We decided to book the same place and same super delux room for the end of the trip in weeks ahead. This seemed a great idea! Until the end of the trip…
30-Sep-11
After missing breakfast, stopped to get a sandwich for 2 people at a nearby cafe, with drinks totaling about $30 US…. better to not miss breakfast again when it is included if possible. Then a trip to the train station to get the eurail passes validated and to the t-mobile store to tech up the ipad.
The tube took us to westminster station for some “oh… big ben” pics, then went to the Churchill museum and his war bunker. From the reviews of the museum it seemed as though you used to be able to get closer to the items and some of the rooms that were behind glass now, it was fun to see but not 4 star, maybe 3.
Stopped for a tea, well coffee and a chocolate bun thing at st pauls cathederal cafe, missing the tour by a few minutes.
Some hot tube rides back to the hotel for a shower to get back on the tube to need another shower ride to the theatre district later.. had a quick ‘pizza’ like thing and salad from alexi’s cafe, that was not on tripadvisor, then we saw “Cool Hand Luke” a new stage play. The show was done really well, and the acting was done well, with the actors all speaking in a US southern accent, y’all. I’m sure most of the audience thought they talk funny, the one actor sounded just like a male Miss Lucy from classic cajon, and looked her a bit. It was great to see a good show that didn’t get an automatic standing ovation like EVERY show in the USA! Ovations are for doing an above and beyond performance.
Meatless food rounded out the evening at Sagar Vegetarian Restaurant before heading back to the hotel for some rest.