Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Ya-chi's Italia Travel Journal: Day 11 London
We landed in London Gatwick airport at 12:15 AM. We managed to find seating areas where people were camping out. I managed to catch a few hours of sleep despite having to contort my body in various ways to get comfortable. We set off for Central London around 7 AM and caught the Gatwick Express to Victoria Station. The tickets round trip were 25 pound! That’s $50 bucks for a three hour visit! Something tells me London is going to be expensive.
We got into Victoria station around 7:30 and walked to Buckingham palace. We were surprised to find the royal guards were not there. After walking around Queen Victoria’s memorial fountain in front we saw the first guards of the day take their post. The guards were well behind fencing so no way to take funny pictures with them. Damn Austin Powers for lying to me!
We walked along St. James Park toward Big Ben and Parliament square. It would have been a nice walk if I hadn’t had to haul my bags around and it was windy, cold and raining. I can’t complain since we had great weather for the entire trip up until now. We saw Parliament square, Big Ben Westminster Abbey and saw the London Eye across the river.
We found a little eatery nearby where I had an “English” breakfast. I think. I’m pretty sure everyone there spoke Spanish so I don’t know how English it really was. I had cappuccino (way weaker than Italian coffee), eggs, tomato, sausage (blah), ham (really good), toast and of all things beans. In fact my food was sitting on top a bowl of beans. I didn’t realize beans were an English thing. It was strange but still good. For all that talks about how good English breakfasts are. I still prefer super fattening American breakfast. We hopped on the underground and went to London Bridge. After wondering aimlessly we found a modern bridge. Oops. I guess we should have gone to Tower Bridge instead. We did see it off in the hazy distance.
We rushed back to Victoria station and managed to hop on the express with only seconds to spare. We went to check in and found an incredibly slow moving line. After 45 minutes we finally got our boarding pass and rushed to our gates which of course were on the far side. Isn’t that always the case?
A few days later…
Heather and I arrived back safely. My cats were alive and extremely needy and everything made it back without breaking. I’m now addicted to Italian coffee (thanks a lot Su-chun!). The trip turned out very well thanks to our travel agent a.k.a. Su-chun. We visited every place we wanted to see, the weather was gorgeous and the locals were nice. Thanks for sticking around through this insanely long journal. Just think I cut out several pages of rants and ravings I had regarding hotels, Catholics, Riposo, etc. Ciao!
We got into Victoria station around 7:30 and walked to Buckingham palace. We were surprised to find the royal guards were not there. After walking around Queen Victoria’s memorial fountain in front we saw the first guards of the day take their post. The guards were well behind fencing so no way to take funny pictures with them. Damn Austin Powers for lying to me!
We walked along St. James Park toward Big Ben and Parliament square. It would have been a nice walk if I hadn’t had to haul my bags around and it was windy, cold and raining. I can’t complain since we had great weather for the entire trip up until now. We saw Parliament square, Big Ben Westminster Abbey and saw the London Eye across the river.
We found a little eatery nearby where I had an “English” breakfast. I think. I’m pretty sure everyone there spoke Spanish so I don’t know how English it really was. I had cappuccino (way weaker than Italian coffee), eggs, tomato, sausage (blah), ham (really good), toast and of all things beans. In fact my food was sitting on top a bowl of beans. I didn’t realize beans were an English thing. It was strange but still good. For all that talks about how good English breakfasts are. I still prefer super fattening American breakfast. We hopped on the underground and went to London Bridge. After wondering aimlessly we found a modern bridge. Oops. I guess we should have gone to Tower Bridge instead. We did see it off in the hazy distance.
We rushed back to Victoria station and managed to hop on the express with only seconds to spare. We went to check in and found an incredibly slow moving line. After 45 minutes we finally got our boarding pass and rushed to our gates which of course were on the far side. Isn’t that always the case?
A few days later…
Heather and I arrived back safely. My cats were alive and extremely needy and everything made it back without breaking. I’m now addicted to Italian coffee (thanks a lot Su-chun!). The trip turned out very well thanks to our travel agent a.k.a. Su-chun. We visited every place we wanted to see, the weather was gorgeous and the locals were nice. Thanks for sticking around through this insanely long journal. Just think I cut out several pages of rants and ravings I had regarding hotels, Catholics, Riposo, etc. Ciao!
# posted by Antipasta @ 4:28 PM 
