20130516 Thursday Sunny Owen’s Pictures Dolores’s Pictures
It's a rather comfortable partly-cloudy day (60*F at 1310).
We've had our breakfast and went to a shop to top off our Oyster cards. Oysters are great – you put pounds into buying it state-side by mail (or here). You use it on any bus and the tube, plus the light rail lines by putting it up to a sensor. On the tube you press it on a departing sensor so you are charged correctly. On the bus, you need not do anything getting off.
Oyster charges for the bus are capped at 4 pounds – once you hit that level it won't go higher. So you can travel all over London for 4 pounds.
We hopped the bus at our door and disembarked at the Victoria & Albert museum. V&A is huge – it has eight miles of displays. It was started by Albert, Royal Consort to Queen Victoria in 1851 with improvements added by Victoria after his death. The subject matter ranges all over the place, from ladies fashions to early church sculptures. One display they were putting in is going to show medieval Italian pieces in order to complement another exhibit next to it of Northern European pieces.
There's no way to do all of it so we nibbled off a few parts and looked at them. The pictures will show what we saw. I'd scan and include the map, but the map wasn't all that great.
Then we hopped on again and went back to the hotel to sit with lemonade and let the feet rest. Then we'll tour part of the city again on the #390 bus.
More later. Later:
We hopped onto the bus at our door and rode it westward. The main part of its route is on the main shopping street of London, Oxford Street. The driver took us through the outrageous traffic, somehow avoiding killing anyone. We saw the major stores of the big chains like Marks & Spencer, H&M, and Primark. We passed by the huge Selfridge's. And Disney.
The route ends at Notting Hill, in a somewhat upscale residential area. We walked around briefly and then caught the #390 bus back. It took one or two side trips but came back Oxford Street then to the northeast to a bus gathering place called Archway. After passing our area, we went through Euston Station, then St Pancras Station, then King's Cross station and on. The area after the stations was a little rough with evidence of Islam followers. As we neared Archway, the residents appeared more to be Indian and Pakistani.
We found another bus route #134 that would take us near our hotel and took it. It went a different route back, so we saw other places. It stopped short of the hotel, so we picked up the #29 bus to the door, arriving at 1700.
We debated about what to do with the rest of the day, and decided to have a light dinner at the Museum Tavern. D had the beef roast, potatoes, carrots, etc., with her shiraz. I had a London Pride ale and the Ploughman's platter – ham quiche, pickle, cheeses, bread, and so forth. We called it good.
Then we went back to the room. We downloaded pictures into the computer and typed some of this narrative. In a little while we'll go to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London that begins at 2130.
We did and we're back. The Ceremony of the Keys has been held daily the last 700 years, the longest continuous ceremonial funchion in the world. I'll let you read about it in the links, but it's just full of tradition. And the feeling of being inside the fortress called the Tower of London at night with only a few other “civilians” is cool.
The Yeoman Warder this night made a point about us now being a part of the ceremony since our names are recorded and will be held. A YouTube of part of the ceremony is here.
No photography was permitted during the ceremony, so I have no pictures of it. I took a few afterward of the inside of the outer gate and of the Tower, but the lighting was bad. I'll try to Photoshop-improve one later.
It was well worth the trouble of applying for the passes (anyone can attend) to attend it.
Getting there on the tube was a hassle only because there's a change of routes that was quite complex to non-Londoners. We took a taxi back. Our chatty taxi driver took us home, but Dolores said he could let us out at the corner, meaning the corner at our hotel. He let us out at the next intersection, which let us walk home past the Museum Tavern. So we stopped for one, then went home.
Now (2347) it’s bedtime. ‘nite. Continued below.
20130517 Friday Cloudy with wind Pictures-Owen Pictures-Dolores
Not a nice day. At 1500 it's still only 48*F and blowing. Haven't these people heard of Spring? Perhaps they define it differently.
We had our breakfast and hit the street (Oxford Street).
We stopped first at Primark to look at clothing; D wanted something a little warmer (wonder why?). It turns out this store is popular for low prices, but the quality is quite low. I found chinos for $13 but it felt as though they'd last a week. D had a similar feeling. We left with nothing.
We stopped next at HMV the DVD and CD galore store. There are almost too many to shop effectively. D found a couple of DVD's to buy. I thought I'd buy a couple of oldies, but D reminded me that these are “area two” coded; the people I was buying them for may not have a universal DVD player, so I dropped the whole idea.
Next we entered Marks and Spencer (M&S) looking at clothing again. This time D found several things “that would work”. Then she narrowed her selection and we left with that.
Standing or walking slowly is more tiring that walking at a normal pace. We decided to sit a while, so we picked out a bus (#25) and went neighborhood-looking and people-watching again. The bus took off to the east and went through “the City” first – the financial district that is a big part of England's economy.
Then it went out into the fringe area of poorer stores and shops and multiple languages and garb styles. Black, middle east, eastern european, and so forth. It terminated at Forest Glenn where we walked a little and caught the bus going back.
It was more of the same in reverse this time except we passed the East London Mosque as prayers ended. The bus filled with muslims and kept going. They dropped off as we went. The bus entered the City and then came to our street where hopped off.
We bought soft drinks and headed for the room to think over what we want to do next, the weather being what it is. We'd earlier thought this would be the night to have our “big” dinner, but that's in doubt.
More later. Later:
We just couldn't decide what to do for dinner, so we decided to hike down to Covent Garden and see what we could find. It's Friday evening, so loads of young folk were out having fun. The sidewalks around the pubs were crowded. We walked down Museum Street to Long Acre to James to Covent Garden. James is a pedestrian street and there we found the street performers like acrobats and mimes going for donations.
We found the Disney place and kept going clockwise around CG looking at menus. We didn't find anything to our liking. We went into the Apple Market hall of the Convent Garden Market and found a place with a good menu. We were given seats with seat and ankle warmers built-in, a good thing since the hall can be cool.
D was remarking yesterday that Jamie Oliver was not her favorite in cooking. This place turned out to be named Union Jacks by Jamie Oliver.
We started with a conversation with our young female server about words in English that don't mean the same or any thing in crossing the US-UK barrier. We did agree that we knew enough common English to arrive at a common point. She was very good at conversing and making one feel welcome.
D had a Brocolli and Courgette soup, then Grilled Spring Chicken with lemon herb rub; I had a Banger Pizza, which is pizza dough with Stilton Cheese with English Mustard, Onion, and Cumberland Sausage. Both were quite good, especially with the bottle of English Pinot Noir (who knew?).
We chatted with neighbors to our right with a boy Jamie's age. A couple speaking only French took their place when they left. They looked somewhat confused at the menu, so our server sat down and took their order in French.
We hiked back through the folks having fun to the hotel. I left D there to go back to the Museum Tavern for a pint. The barman was busy, but when I asked him about the crowd he insisted it was quite quiet; that sometimes people are clawing at the bar and throwing money to get drink. I'm glad it wasn't busy.
Back then to the room and to these computer chores. 'nite.