Travelogue, Part the Third: Oh, yeah, it's prime, all right.

Welcome back to our little Funtime in London Adventure. We took a short hiatus while we grieved the bombings (remember Poon's? The bus bomb was basically right outside), celebrated Birthday Day, Part II (The Boy, Dad, Zander), and endured Internet outages due to violent random thunderstorms. But I will finish this thing, goddammit.

(It's nasty, this lazy versus stubborn cage match. Stubborn is winning, though it may be because I promised myself ice cream after I write, and not before.)

Okay, so we left off at Monday. After another lovely English breakfast, we take the Tube down to the Embankment and buy tickets for a boat ride down the Thames.

Pop quiz! Fill in the blank: The weather in London is probably _______; I should bring my _________.

A. Rainy; umbrella
B. Overcast; umbrella
C. Foggy; umbrella
D. Blistering hot and sunny; sunscreen (and maybe umbrella)

If you picked D, you did better than we. While it was gorgeous and sunny that day, it never occurred to us that we'd need sunscreen for the trip. I mean, we're up in the 50's in latitude. That's north of Maine. That's, that's practically Canada, people, where it's snowing all the time, and elk and reindeer cause traffic problems, and people say things like "I don't know aboot that" except they may say it in French. The last thing you think about is "Hey, maybe I should put sunblock on my head so it doesn't look like I have a horrible skin disease once I burn and start peeling." At least I remembered my Dramamine.

So we board the boat and begin traversing the Thames. On the boat is a native tour guide with a karaoke microphone, telling us amusing and informative anecdotes about the sights we pass, like "Once I snogged wif dis bird be'ind dat pub, on de apples an' pears. Blimey, I fink it was Madonna." We did get good views, though, like this one, of the London Eye. It's like a hugemongous ferris wheel that moves v...e...r...y s...l...o...w...l...y. Slowly enough that it never stops moving, and it still allows enough time for people to get off and on. We didn't try it, because one circuit takes about an hour, and Dog knows I get fidgety after about 5 minutes unless I have my hamster wheel to run on. They didn't have a hugemongous one of those.

We tie up at Greenwich and disembark, making our way to the 19th-century ship the Cutty Sark. This is a shot of her rigging, and gives you a sense of how much these people must have known what they were doing. They weren't weekenders on Sea-Doos, who think that "No Wake" signs are funereal instructions. No, sir, they were real-life salty dogs with scurvy and lisping syphilitic pirates played by Johnny Depp.

We opted to go to the National Maritime Museum next. It provides an almost-interesting history of water-and-boat related things. The comparative propeller display was particularly compelling, although it rivaled the comparative anchor display. Our attention to all things maritime waning, we turned our attention to something less deadly, like taking a smoke break outside.

This is what *I* came here for: The Greenwich Observatory, from afar. From the docks, it's about a mile and a half. Uphill, both ways. Our legs were still very sore and walked-out from Tower Day, and we nearly bagged the idea, until we saw the little green tram. Thanks be to God for the Little Green Tram, friend of lethargic and bone-weary Americans! Best 2 pounds we spent that day.

The tram takes us to the top of the hill, and the Observatory. We have less than an hour before we have to catch the tram that we think will get us back to the boat at a reasonable hour. We stand in line to take a picture of me straddling the Prime Meridian, one foot in each hemisphere. I did not opt for the Official Certificate that one can purchase 2 feet to the right of the line. We raced through the building complex, which contained a sort of history of earth-bound space observation, especially in connection with -- yes, you guessed it -- maritime travel. One amusing story about how sailors figured out time when they were on boats: you stab a dog with a knife before you leave London. The same knife is dipped, prior to the stabbing, in a pile of salt. Once the wound heals, the dog sails with you. Every day, the same knife is plunged into the same pile of salt in London, and every dog stabbed with that knife, no matter where they are, will simultaneously yelp, letting you know it's noon in London. It's a sort of Marquis de Sade meets Pavlov thing.

This is the view from the Observatory, facing London. The skyscrapers in the distance are the financial district, including, as our tour guide told us, the "Haitch Ess Bee See Building" (HSBC being a large bank over there). The building in the middle is one of the many Queen's Houses in London. If you'll notice, the building in front of it (the old Royal Naval College) is split in half, so as not to obscure HRH's view of the river.

After grabbing a "bacon" sandwich from a vendor ("bacon" over there is not what we think bacon is here. It's sort of a cross between Canadian bacon and ham, cooked just enough to be warm but not enough to be crispy), we caught the tram, and did, in fact, manage to make it back to the boat in time. The return ride was quiet, except for the very obnoxiously noisy family next to us.

We returned to our hotel, did the afternoon nap thing, and then hit Chez Gerard for dinner. The steak was just okay, but they had real salad (not three lettuce leaves and a slice of tomato, typically referred to as a "salad garnish"), and the frites were outstanding, not to mention the desserts.

Yes, I talk about food a lot. Food is important, dammit. And now? I'm going to go eat some ice cream. The rest of this will go faster, I promise. I think I took fewer pictures as the week went on unless horses were involved.

Next: War. What is it good for, besides tourism?

Travelogue, Part the Second: Off With Their Heads!

We arose bright and early on Sunday morning and headed down to breakfast. English breakfast is a marvelous thing. Sausages, roasted potatoes, fresh fruits, croissants, pastries toast, tea...heaven! I mean, unless you're on the Atkins diet or something. The English diet seems to consist largely of fatty meats, starchy vegetables, bread, and ale. And given all that, although the people I saw were generally a bit fleshier than the emaciated ideal in America, the startling thing was the lack of people of very large girth. And if I saw them, they were generally vacationing Americans.

After feasting on breakfast starches, we met our friend Dr. Death and took the Tube to the Tower of London.
Between the Tube stop and the Tower, we walked past the remnants of an old Roman wall. I touched it. It didn't fall down. There was also, in front of it, a statue of Festivus or some other Roman Person. The group behind us felt inclined to put a pink feather boa around his neck. He didn't seem to mind.
We walked on a bit to the Tower, which was totally fantastic. The part just to the right of center, with the spires, is the White Tower. The spires, if you look closely, are topped by golden weathervanes, with crowns on the top. I want one of those for my house.

We joined up with a tour, led by one of the Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters), named Simon, who is not pictured here, but instead, I'm providing a generic picture for you, the home viewer. Simon was witty and dramatic and everything you could want in a tour guide. These fellows are privileged enough to actually live on the Tower grounds with their families. How cool a retirement would that be? Simon was with us until we reached the chapel, but since there were actually services going on at the time, we couldn't go in. So we kept on exploring on our own.

One of the things we went to see was the actual crown jewels. A note to the fellas, though: when you give your girlfriend a ring the day before, it may not be the best idea to take her to see things encrusted with 27,000 diamonds less than 24 hours later. Just saying, is all.

The neatest part here, I thought, was that when you're wandering through the museum, before you get to the jewels, they show you films of Elizabeth's coronation, and you get to see the jewels in action, so to speak. It brought home the idea that although it might be nice to be a queen, there is no hairdo in the world that looks fabulous under a crown. Imagine the hat-head!

Speaking of hat-head, this was also our first encounter with palace guards...since the Tower is still technically a palace, there are guards on duty at all times. You may notice the not-at-all-ceremonial automatic weapon he's carrying.

We had a snack, walked around a bit more, up windy staircases, down windy staircases, the Monty Python jokes flying fast and furious. We finally went inside the chapel, where I was fascinated with the giant pipe organ (insert joke here) and the proximity to Famous Dead People.

Before leaving the Tower, I must say a word about the ravens. Historically, it seems, there have always been ravens at the Tower. Common sense tells us that this is probably because there often seemed to be eyeballs available to peck, in bodyless heads staked along the wall, but legend says that if the ravens ever leave the tower, the monarchy will fall. So there are always at least six ravens at the Tower. They don't fly, as their wings are clipped (a superstitious lot, the English, but not impractical), but they hop like nobody's business. And they are seriously hellaciously HUGE.

We walked from the Tower to the Tower Bridge, which is possibly the most recognizable symbol of London. It's quite a major feat of engineering and stuff, considering it's about 100 years old, and it's still in operation. That bit at the top is a walkway between the towers. We took the lift up and walked around, which provided a breathtaking view of the city. This is the Thames, facing westward from the center of the Tower Bridge walkway. You can see the dome of St. Paul's on the far right, and the battleship Something-or-Other in the middle. We were supposed to take the lift back down, to see the engine room for the drawbridge, but when we got there, the lift had just died, so we had to walk back down the steps. This left us with only enough energy to walk to the Tube station and back to the hotel, where we parted ways with Dr. Death for the moment and flopped down for a nap before dinner.

Dinner was with Dr. Death again, at a little Italian place, where we all had something akin to veal cordon bleu, and finished with tasty desserts. We agreed to meet up again later in the week, and parted company with the good doctor. I think I fell asleep before I got to the hotel room.

Next: Greenwich Mean and The Time

Travelogue, Part the First: Getting there is NOT half the fun

We arrive at the airport Friday evening at about 7:30 for our 9:55 p.m. flight. We hadn't eaten dinner, figuring that we'd best get checked in and through security before we attempted it. Good thing, too. We go to the British Airways check-in counter. There are approximately 752 people checking in for this flight, and there are three lines open to receive them. And as far as we know, we don't actually have seats for this flight yet.

After over an hour, we're checked in, and we have seats, which is better than 18 other people on our flight, who got bumped. Last boarding is at 9:35. It's 8:45. We pass a restaurant or two, during our journey through the airport to security, and then from security to our concourse, and decide that for sure, there'll be something in our concourse for us to eat.

There isn't. Everything's closed. We manage to grab a couple of bottles of water, a small box of Wheat Thins (for me) and a package of Lard-Filled Fats for Zander at the newsagent stand right before it closed, and called it dinner. We had time for a drink at the bar by the gate, and Zander had time for a smokey treat, before boarding.

We were in the next-to-last row. The whiney people behind us didn't have seats that reclined very far; therefore, they reasoned, we shouldn't put OUR seats back, either. We could only recline them halfway before we started getting kicked and kneed in the back. When you're talking about half of a maximum of a 59 degree angle in the Cheap Seats, you're not far from upright. It was not a fun flight. If not for my sleeping pill, I doubt I'd have slept at all. I think I snuck in about 3 hours over the course of the 7-hour flight.

We land, take a taxi to our hotel, and arrive at about 12:30 p.m. London time. Here is a picture of our hotel:
Our room isn't ready. So we dropped the luggage off with the concierge and took off on the Tube for some sightseeing. We walked 'round by the river, and went to Trafalgar square, where I saw for the first time what would become a familiar sight over the next week -- signs screaming "BACK THE BID!" London is bidding for the summer 2012 Olympic games. The actual people we talked to in London think this is the dumbest idea ever, and I can't disagree. While London is, overall, a very, very cool city, and one that everyone should visit at least once, it is extremely crowded already during the summer. It is at least as crowded as DC, with narrower streets. I cannot for the life of me imagine an additional million or more people fitting into this city.

Anyway, after a couple of hours of wandering, we check back at the hotel at about 2:30 and yes, thankfully, our room is ready. We unpack, and then nap for about 2 1/2 hours. I awaken more refreshed, but completely disoriented...I have no idea what day it is, what time it is, whether I should be eating breakfast or dinner. I showered the travel grime off, chanting to myself, "It's dinnertime, it's dinnertime, it's dinnertime" to try to adapt.

So I'm sitting on the bed, my hair still wet, putting on makeup before we go out to search for food. And Zander looks at me, heaves a sigh, and says, "So. We're in London." "Yep," I confirm. He scrounges in his packpack and palms something, then moves over to sit on the bed next to me. He smiles and presents me with a Little Black Box, opening it to reveal The Sparkly, and making a statement that involved the word "marry". I made oooohing and aaaahhhing noises and we agreed that these things would count as a proposal and acceptance.

We went to dinner with our friend Dr. Death at a fabulous Chinese place called Poon's *snicker* to celebrate. After a varied and filling meal, we called it an early night, and retired.

Coming Soon: Silly English Knights