Today is the first day of our world tour. We rose early on the morning of April 29, at 4:15 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time. Showered and last things packed, we finalized our last important booking for South Africa. This involved a phone call, retransmitting an email to a different address, and confirming and paying for the booking. Talk about white knuckles. Still, it is done.
We drove our Enterprise rental car to LA, found the Enterprise lot (no it's not with the other rental car agencies) and arrived at the airport in plenty of time. Our flight to Philadelphia was without incident, and we met up with friends T & D there. They flew in from Las Vegas, and, according to the airline flight information boards, didn't arrive or would arrive late. We finally found them, quite by accident. We will be hiking and touring with them in Scotland.
The flight from Philly to London's Heathrow airport is also without incident. This is good. By the time we clear immigration and customs, and figure out what train ticket to by (an Oyster card, by the way, although deciding what to buy, determining where to buy it, and then swiping the d***ed cards over the reader, consumed at least half an hour) it was noon.
We ride the London Underground to Victoria Station (one change at Hammersmith), and trundle our trusty wheeled duffels to our hotel, the Lynton Hotel in Belgravia, SW1. T & D have a double room on the ground floor. We have a twin (two twin beds) on the second floor. Remember that this is England -- there's the ground floor, first floor (in US the second), etc. The room is crowded but liveable. B & I edge around each other and the beds gingerly. The en suite bath is a tiny cabin crowded into what surely was once a "fitted closet". But the location is great. We settle in.
Clearly lunch is in order. Our host gives us a few ideas, and, after a few sallies down this street and that, we settle on a pub just around the corner from the hotel. It seems that April is curry month. T & D choose curries, I split pea soup, and B a meat pie with chips. And of course we have good British beer to wash down our lunches. And I "help" B with his lunch -- chips dipped in gravy are good!
Bellies satisified, we set off up Buckingham Palace Road to ... wait for it ... Buckingham Palace. Here is the palace, a huge pile of stone behind gilded wrought-iron gates, guarded today by Grenadier Guards in their red jackets and tall brown shakos with white plumes. We see the guard change at the hour, but will probably pass up the chance to see the regiments parade in the formal changing of the guard, which happens only every other day at this season.
About this time, some 3 p.m. London time, I begin to droop. The only defense is to keep moving, so we visit the Victoria Memorial, across from the palace, and then go to inspect the gates of Green Park, one of the several parks that border the palace.
We agree that a snooze is in order. After a short siesta from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., we meet for dinner. Where shall we go? B remembers a sign for a special - $15 (pounds) for a bottle of wine and plate to share. We finally locate the pub with the sign, and indeed get inside and seated. B goes to place our order at the bar, but ... it's Friday night and the kitchen is closed; only drinks, thanks.
So we go for alternative #2 (or was it #3?), a wine bar near the hotel. Here we have surprisingly good meal, with a glass of wine. Mine was a green salad, followed by a risotto primavera -- creamy rice, lots of cheese, asparagus, and broccoli.
Tomorrow we will meet for breakfast, served in the basement of our hotel, at 8. Then it's off to the South Bank for the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, the London Eye (maybe) and the Millenium Bridge. Who knows, we might even fit in a short boat trip to Greenwich.
Today's picture, such as they are, begin here.
