London: Day One

I woke up feeling much better, and looked around the room I barely recall from the morning. It is quite nice: 2 single beds with double doors (creating a “changing” area). It has two mirrors, both of which are hilariously too high for me to use without shoving a chair over, and a shower/toilet just up one flight of stairs.

            We went down and our Indian friend directed us to talk to Ken, our pink-shirted, bleached blonde, extremely helpful and friendly owner of the bed and breakfast. He talked to us about bleeding the airlines for everything we could after everything we went through, as well as what to do around London, trying to convince us (ahem…Kyle) to take in a show.

            We left, took the tube into the city, and started our whirlwind tour. We saw: Big Ben/Elizabeth Tower, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St. Stephen’s, Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park (with the Princess Di tribute), Green Park, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace (where we caught the end of the queen’s procession for a Jubilee activity, so therefore couldn’t get close), the River Thames, the London Eye, Kensington Palace, Westminster Arch, Marble Arch, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus, Soho, Herrods, Prince Albert Hall, Prince Albert Memorial, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Geological Society. Yes. It was insane, and about 10 miles of walking.

            Some notes: 1) There are things everywhere for the Diamond Jubilee/Olympics. It’s both cool to see/annoying because of the construction (such as at Buckingham Palace). 2) Kyle was more impressed with the huge swans at Kensington Palace than the actual place (“They’re huge! They could eat me!”). 3) Kyle wanted to throw a kid off of a lion statue shouting “U.S.A.!” in order to get a turn to get a picture. 4) We got to see the famous Piccadilly McDonald’s, which was the one thing my father asked me to see in Europe, as it was for my grandfather the “best place in England” nearly 40 years ago when he was here. 5) A couple of tourists from the Ukraine asked for my help at Prince Albert Hall. It took me awhile to figure out that what they wanted help with was buying Guess jeans. I told them I was a tourist too and couldn’t assist.

            It spitted rain off and on. It wasn’t bad, really, and we got to see a double rainbow. Hopefully, a sign of good luck.

            We got back to the bed and breakfast. The female receptionist was there…but not my bag. We called the airline. They didn’t answer, telling me to leave a message. We looked up my bag online (we have internet access during certain hours), and it was supposed to have been here six hours ago. I went back to reception, called again, while some Finnish Harry Potter fans and a mustachioed gentleman waited. As I spelled my name to the airline, the mustachioed man perked up and pointed to his slip. “Never mind,” I said to the airline guy. My bag was here!

            I went upstairs and opened my bag to find…everything moist. I laid things out to dry, and we asked reception about someplace to eat. We walked to a burger place where I had a cheeseburger and chocolate milkshake (B, A+). Kyle had “skinny fries”, and something new-a burger with horseradish and rocket (B for the burger, C for the fries).

            We walked back to the bed and breakfast, I took a shower and went to bed.

            Side note: Kyle likes to fall asleep to the T.V. So we drifted off to South Park. How soothing.