That's how long it had been since my last visit to London. Okay, really more like ten-and-a-half, but still, a very long time.
Looking at maps before I left, I could still picture in my mind the things I would see, but of course, London has changed in the time I've been away (I'm still eyeballing the Shard with some mistrust). I wondered what it would be like to wander around some of my old haunts, and whether I'd still love it as I used to.
Spoiler alert: I did. I do.
I woke up before my alarm clock--at something like 6:00 in the morning, which was good and bad. Good because it gave me a lot of time to wander around London, bad because, well, jet lag. But when do I let jet lag stop me?
I started with a Marks and Spencer Breakfast of Champions (only one scone, saved the rest for other days).
London starts to wake as I approach Bayswater Tube Station.
Waiting for the Circle Line.
I took the Tube to Westminster Station, because it is there I could pay homage to my favorite London icon.
Hello, Big Ben!
It was early, so nothing was open, but I had a wander around by the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, before walking across Westminster Bridge to the South Bank.
Westminster Abbey
Parliament from the bridge.
Looking West as I cross Westminster Bridge.
Most people make an immediate left at the end of the bridge...but if you make a right, you get this picture.
It was a little bit overcast, but I could see occasional signs that the sun was trying to push its way through. I walked on along the South Bank, because I haven't spent a great amount of time there in the past.
Artsy-fartsy view of Ben. I was waiting for the hour to come so I could take a video of him chiming.
Looking across at the North side of the river.
I found this graffiti haven along the South Bank and had a look around.
The current prime minister has his share of non-fans.
Outside the National Theater, a statue of Laurence Olivier.
Come around a bend--the Thames is very twisty--and there's the dome of St. Paul's.
St. Paul's Cathedral is something like 600+ years old. The buildings to the right are all under the age of 15.
A little side street--cuter in person.
I wandered away from the river walk for a bit in search of WiFi, a loo, and a mid-morning snack. I found all three at a Starbucks, where I was delighted to find that you get tea in a proper mug (not paper) and the snacks are very British.
Apparently this means "Don't applaud, just throw money."
My first glimpse of the Shard. I'm just not sure about this one but I suppose it's here to stay.
Bacon Butty (yes) at Starbuck's, and yes, I put the HP Sauce on it. Delicious.
Refreshed, I returned to the river, doubling back a tiny bit to get a glimpse of the Globe Theater. The original Globe--where many Shakespeare works saw their debut--burned down long ago, but a replica has been built near the original site and is used as a working theater and museum to this day. I got to play around on the stage in 1999, but this time I decided to skip the tour.
St. Paul's is almost directly across from the Globe.
The sun was starting to make more of an appearance.
Next to the Globe, a couple of charming little buildings.
Selfie with St. Paul's (hard to see, but it's there).
Strange as it sounds, I had never walked across the Millennium foot bridge, and as it provided a direct route to St. Paul's, I took it today.
So many new buildings.
It's a well-used bridge.
Looking East--way off you can see Tower Bridge.
The last time I went inside St. Paul's was 1999, and it was on my wish list for this trip. Photography is not allowed inside, but trust me, it is spectacular. During the German blitzkrieg of World War Two, Winston Churchill famously said, "St. Paul's must be saved at all costs." While much of the surrounding area was decimated by German bombs, St. Paul's and it's famous--and glorious--dome survived, thanks to firefighters and a dedicated group of people called St. Paul's Watch.
Near St. Paul's is a lovely bronze memorial to the fire fighters of World War Two.
St. Paul's is the second-largest free-standing cathedral dome in the world, with the largest, of course, being St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. I've seen both, and both are incredible, but my heart is always, of course, going to lean London in these things. St. Paul's is gorgeous, inside and out.
The front.
I did a cursory tour of the ground floor (the best part is standing right in the middle under the dome and looking up), before heading up, up, up. First to the Whispering Gallery, 257 steps up, according to the official web site. From here, you look down upon the floor of the cathedral, and according to the web site, "It gets its name from a charming quirk in its construction, which makes a whisper against its walls audible on the opposite side."
Another hundred-something steps up (for a grand total of 376), is the Stone Gallery, and I hiked up to this for the view (who needs the Shard, anyway?). It was windy up there, so I didn't stay long, but I got some great shots with both camera and iPhone.
Eleven years ago, there was only the gherkin over there.
Looking across the Millennium Foot Bridge. The Globe is just to the left in this picture.
A close-up of the above.
Looking West, you can see the London Eye.
A selfie for Instagram.
Another with the iPhone.
After the dome, I went down to the crypt to pay my respects to Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, and Sir Christopher Wren. As a rule, I'm not a fan of crypts, and if you've seen one sarcophagus, you've seen them all. (Seriously.) But these dudes are important to England for various reasons, and Wren is the reason we have St. Paul's as it is, so I had a look around and then got down to the important business of going to the gift shop.
Next, I had a look around the surrounding area, including the old church yard.
It had to be done.
Across the street from the church, I found a small sculpture which offered a really terrific shot.
By this point, it was just starting to approach lunch time, and I was feeling very smug indeed that I was making my way around London without any problems. For someone who gets lost in the grid streets of the small city she's spent most of her life near (Sacramento), I have an uncanny sense of direction in London and can almost always point the right direction to the river. And that river does not run in a straight line.
Strange.
There's so much more to Monday, but it will have to go in another post. Stay tuned!
Obviously, a plane landing in London doesn't meant that it's instant fun time. There's getting off the plane (takes forever), and then...there's Heathrow.
I'm just going to say it. Heathrow is awful. I suppose it could be worse, but it just really isn't my favorite place to arrive, even if it does mean I'm finally back in London after eleven years gone. Why?
Because there is nothing easy about Heathrow.
For starters, you wait forever to get off the plane (which happens on any plane, at any airport, to be fair), but then, once you are finally free of your tin can home of the last several hours, you have to hike--and I mean hike--to Border Control. You walk, you turn, you walk some more. Several clueless souls stop in the middle of the walkway. You trip on their rolling carry-on bag. You roll your eyes at them...and then you walk more.
Finally, you reach Border control. You notice that the line for the UK passport holders and EU passport holders is moving along at a fast clip, while your line, the one for everyone who is not part of the European Union, is long, and there are only three agents serving it. Each one looks like someone just peed on their shoes.
So you wait. You have had no sleep, your stomach is growling, and you haven't seen a loo for a while, but you wait, holding your passport and immigration form and hoping this doesn't take too long.
On Sunday, I noticed a particular trend. Of the three agents checking passports, one in particular seemed especially humorless. And about two-thirds of the lucky sods who approached her desk seemed to get led off to a strange holding area after several minutes of talking to her. I started to get very worried that I'd be forced to deal with her, and then denied entry to the UK for having bad breath or some such weird reason. I started recounting every time I went out drinking with the girls when I lived in Burnham--had I done anything that would show up when they scanned my passport? (In a word: No.)
Still, I was tired, I was hungry, and my bladder was full. My mind was on overdrive with Anxious Traveler thoughts.
Finally, I reached the front of the line, and thankfully, I got another agent. She was similarly humorless and positively grilled me ("Where are you staying?" "How long are you here for?" "Have you visited the UK before?"). I answered to her satisfaction and after a couple minutes, she stamped my passport and motioned me through. I almost ran, but figured that might arouse suspicion, and kept it to a sedate-but-brisk walk instead.
So hooray! I was successfully allowed into the country. Now, to find...gah, a toilet. Fortunately, there was one in the baggage hall, and as I darted toward it, I saw my suitcase on the ground next to a baggage carousel. It had taken so long to get through Border Control, that all of my plane's bags had been removed and the carousel turned off. I did my thing, grabbed my suitcase, and...
Walked.
More.
Another hike--I'm not kidding, getting from Point A to Point B at any time in Heathrow is exhausting, and remember, I run half marathons for funsies. Add forty pounds of suitcase, and it's quite a haul. But finally I emerged into the arrivals meeting hall, saw a sign for Heathrow Express, and followed it...another hike, but a little shorter. Finally I was on a train, and fifteen minutes later, we were pulling into Paddington Rail Station.
I chose my hotel, the London House Hotel, because of it's proximity to Paddington and Heathrow Express. The area is a good one, very convenient to the rest of the city, and very walkable.
In London, you pay for location, not for room size. I knew this going in, and expected my single room to be tiny. I was not disappointed. It was itty-bitty to the extreme! The whole bathroom was about three feet wide. But it was also clean, comfortable, and it had an electric kettle and the makings for a cup of tea. The bathroom floor was heated (though the single-pane window proved very drafty at night. #oldbuildingproblems).
Though I was exhausted and seriously in need of a shower, I was also nearly delirious from hunger, so I walked about a quarter of a mile to the nearby shopping center, where a Marks & Spencer food hall awaited me.
Oh, English tabloids.
At first I thought they'd gone and named a potato salad after the new princess, but then I was informed a few days later that Baby Charlotte may be a potato variety.
Happiness is a cuppa in your hotel room. And a shower. And a nap.
Sufficiently armed with dinner and breakfast for the next day, and a small container of milk for a week's worth of tea in my hotel room, I returned to my hotel and promptly brewed a cup of tea before jumping in the shower.
After a snack and a cuppa, I settled in to nap for three hours. I only ended up sleeping an hour, but it was sufficient to help me make it through the rest of the afternoon and evening. I had grand plans, you see.
Right after I booked my trip, I started looking for options for seeing a show. London theater is some of the best in the world. I ended up not seeing a theater show, but instead, Cirque du Soleil, which was presenting Amaluna at Royal Albert Hall. I had never seen Cirque live, and I'd never been inside Royal Albert Hall, so I decided I simply must go.
However, closing night for Amaluna was my first night in town, meaning I'd be there with a serious case of jet lag.
It all worked out. I decided well ahead of time that walking the mile-and-a-half to the hall on my first day would be silly, especially as I planned to dress up for the show. I had concierge call for a cab, and I found a cab for the ride home later.
The hall is beautiful.
Jet lagged but happy!
The show? The show was amazing. The athletic and dancing capabilities these performers have is jaw-dropping, and I spent the whole evening leaned forward in my seat with my mouth hanging open and the occasional surprised, "Oh!!" bursting forth. I wasn't the only one behaving this way.
Amaluna is a re-imagining of Shakespeare's "The Tempest," but mostly, it was a chance for Cirque artists to awe and astound us all. Remembering all the details now is difficult--it's been a week and I might as well have been drunk because I'd had one whole hour of sleep in about twenty-four hours.
I do know I enjoyed it.
After the show, it was back to the hotel and straight to bed. Monday was my first chance to revisit some long-time London favorites, and I wanted all of the energy I could muster.
