London February 2002

In August of 2001, J & I bought a house and moved into Dallas. We took that whole week off to move. On a fluke we decided to go and get our passports. What the heck, right? They are good for 10 years.

As it turns out, it was a GREAT idea. The following February, we got a excellent deal to London. I don't how we decided to do it. J's dad called us and said he'd seen some really good deals in the paper for travel overseas and that we should check it out. We did. We got a package deal for an excellent price.

This was our first trip overseas and we had no idea what to expect. We were glad to be going to another English speaking country. We did know that it was going to be really cold over there in February so we packed our heavy coats.

We had an overnight flight. We left Saturday evening about 5 pm and got there Sunday mid morning. We tried to sleep on the plane but we were really exhausted when we got there. We took the Gatway Express to Victoria Station and then took a cab to our hotel. We were staying at the Melia White House.

We checked in and promptly took a nap. When we got up, we wandered around a bit and found a nice little mom & pop restaurant. It was really good but not cheap.

The next day we had a half day tour set up to take us around the city. We got up and had breakfast (which was a huge buffet that was included in the price of the hotel. My system was still out of whack so I had a hard time eating that early). The tour was picking us up at Victoria Station. We were going to take the subway - Excuse me - I mean "The Tube" - but we were having a hard time figuring it out. The really nice lady stopped and helped us out. After the first ride, we got the hang of it and we really liked it.
Here's J at the station. We hung out here for a while waiting for the tour. It was really cool. I did learn one thing here - NEVER pass up the opportunity to go to the bathroom for free! That's right. You had to PAY to use the facilities.

So the tour took us around the city and we got to see several of the famous landmarks like Big Ben, Parliament, the Millennium Eye (which was a huge Ferris wheel). We also took a boat ride on the Themes. That was cool.
This is London Bridge. I know what you're thinking but I promise you, it is. Also, this is the second one. The original London Bridge is in Arizona somewhere. Someone bought it. Bizarre. Why would you want a bridge? in a desert?
This is the Tower Bridge. This is what everyone thinks of when they think of London Bridge.

The next stop was the Tower of London. I've read so many books about historical London and the Tower is always a center piece in some form or fashion. This is where Henry VIII sent Anne Boleyn and Katharine Howard before they were beheaded. The two little princes were kept here in 1483 until they mysteriously disappeared.
The Tower is also where the crown jewels are house. (No photos allowed of the crowned jewels). The were very heavily guarded. They were nice but a little too much for my taste.

At some point, the Tower was also a residence.
I thought this was interesting. This describes the Norman Garderobe, which is basically a little alcove that has a seat cut into it. The seat has an opening in the back that leads down the castle wall. So, it was almost like plumbing.

We also went to Madame Tussuad's Wax Museum. Madame Tussuad was a wax modeller back in the late 1700s and early 1800s. She used to go and do wax models from decapitated heads of executed citizens from the French Revolution. She also made wax figures of other famous people. There's one of herself at the front of the museum in London. There are now wax museums with her name all over the world.
This one of the Fab Four is my favorite. Some of the wax figures were just out so that you could stand next to them and have your photo made, like this one of J and Gandhi.
The was one of Hitler that was amazingly life like. Apparently, a similar figure of Hitler was beheaded in the Berlin location of Madame Tussuad's.

We also visited Harrods, the famous department store.
What? They obviously had deals that I couldn't pass up.

The food here wasn't really very good. After that first dinner, things kind of went down hill from there. We ate a LOT of sandwiches. They had this sandwich place called Pret*A*Manger that was really pretty good but even a good sandwich gets old after a while. We tried Shepherd's Pie and some quiche. I finally broke down and insisted that we go to Mickey D's. I ended up getting a hot dog they had there. It was not good. And then we discovered fish n chips. Oh kids. I could have eaten that the rest of the week. In fact, I had it at every opportunity. It was hot, good and cheap. How can you go wrong?

We went walking around town and we stopped at Westminster Abbey. That was when we realized that we were in a country that had a history much older and richer than ours.
This is where many of the kings and queens of England were buried. We stood next to the grave of Queen Elizabeth I who reigned from 1533 - 1603. That was an overwhelming concept to take in. People have stood in this exact same spot for 399 years. Also buried at Westminster are William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer. Unfortunately, no photos inside the Abbey.

We walked around and looked at everything. As we were leaving, we noticed that they were starting a service. It wasn't until we were outside (and couldn't get back in) that we realized they were having a service for Ash Wednesday. Bummer.

Look kids....
Big Ben...
and Parliament.

We got to see a show - Phantom of The Opera - at Her Majesty's Theatre. Again, no photos.

We did another tour. This one was all day. We went out to Stonehenge. Holy Moly! it was freezing out there.
Nobody knows when this was built or by whom. The guess is that it was built about 2500 BC. That would make this thing about 4000 years old. Amazing.
The next stop was Bath. All the wealthy people used to come here and bathe in the water for medicinal purposes. The water comes up from its own source. It's very warm. The tour guide said that you really shouldn't put your hands in. Are they kidding? That sounded like a challenge to me.
Just for the record, it was hot - just like they said. The water is supposed to have lots of minerals and be good for you to drink. In the "Pump Room", they sell the water by the glass. We had to try it, of course.
It was warm and tasted kind of "tinny". Probably because of all the iron. It was not very tasty at all.

We spent a day visiting some museums. We went to the Tate Modern, which was very cool. No photos. Then we paid a call on Liz. Can you believe she wouldn't see us?
Here's Buckingham Palace. If you look hard enough you'll see me in front. You can't see them here but the flags are at half mast because Princess Margaret (Queen Elizabeth's sister) died. It was kind of sad.

After stopping by the Palace, we went to the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker St. We actually got to go inside one of those homes that you see that are three stories high. It was really cool. There isn't a lot of room in those houses. Unfortunately, no photos.
Here's J resting in our hotel after a long day of walking around.

On our last day there we took another tour. This one took us to Leeds Castle. It was very nice. It was originally built in 897 and then "re-done" by the Normans in 1119. We actually got to go in and look around. No photos inside. One cool thing - apparently, you can rent a room there like a B&B.
After the tour of Leeds, we went on to Dover. We were serenaded - quite unexpectedly - by our tour guide. He sang the whole song of White Cliffs of Dover. So from the beach at Dover, if you look across the water, you should be able to see Calais, France. There was also a castle up in the hills where there tunnels they used when defending the port.
The castle is up on the hill in the background. It was built in the 12th century by Henry II. The white is actually chalk. The same chalk you use on a chalk board.
Then on to our final destination of the day - Canterbury. We got to in to Canterbury Cathedral - where the shrine of Thomas Beckett is. This guy was the Archbishop of Canterbury (when England was still part of the Roman Catholic Church) and he went up against Henry II arguing about the rights of the Church.
This is the tomb of one of the Archbishops of Canterbury (not Thomas Becket). This marble statue is very similar to the tombs and statues in Westminster Abbey. It's almost like they put a statue of who's inside the coffin on top. Well, I guess not almost, it's exactly what they did. For these marble statues, the death mask of the person was used as a model.

And so ends our first European vacation. We really enjoyed London and were overwhelmed by all the history. There were a lot of things that we'd like to have done but maybe next time.