My Surface Hippy Adventure

The Beginning: London Days 1 + 2

Hello blog-readers! It's Julie writing and it looks as though I will be taking over the blog since dad needs to rest. There is much to catch up on - we couldn't write earlier because we had to pay for our time on various computers at cafes in england and the hotel in chennai, but now that we're at the hospital and have had the internet connected we will hopefully have unlimited access :) (which I'm very happy about because it looks like I'll have time to spare this week). I guess I'll start from the beginning even though my memory is a bit blurry at this point.

DAY (s) #1: We arrived at the airport in good time (not late for once!) The flight was fairly long (about 7 hours plus a delay in the philly terminal) and we had jetlag since we took off around 6:15 pm and when we landed in England it was 6:20 am (english time) .. we then took the tube which was somewhat disastrous! It was morning rush hour in england and we had tons of luggage and then tube just kept getting more and more crowded at every stop.. and then we had to transfer lines and had to carry our luggage up and down steps and had to do the same when we arrived.. whoops. we were trying to save $ but later realized that we could take the heathrow connect instead of express (which was much easier o nthe way back) for about the same $ as the tube. We lugged our things to our hotel, which was more like a small bed and breakfast owned by a couple.. the husband was from malta, italy and were not sure of the wife's nationality. We first had a very noisy small room right next to the desk on the first floor but thankfully got it changed to a nice one upstairs. Running up and down the spiral stairs for 5 flights with our various luggage peices was worth it. We were tired but it was bright out and we (or at least I) was anxious to see London so we went for a walk. It was beautiful out (clear and sunny- very rare for london) so we walked to Hyde park and sat on lounging chairs that were out all around and got a sandwhich.. dad fell asleep for a bit.. then he tried to feed the pigeons chips ..but they didn't want his food. The birds must be spoiled there.. dad kept trying to get them to eat his chips.. it was sad. He said his food "wasn't even good enough for the birds". Then we bought a bus tour ticket for the next day. We walked around London for awhile.. up and down Oxford Street and the surrounding areas. We went in a few stores but just walked by most of them to see what was around. I thought that a japanese place called "Wasabi" looked sweet from the outside so we went in. It had lime green chairs and was decorated modernly. The ENTIRE side wall was full of sushi. They had the regular boxes, but they also had peices of sushi wrapped individually, (almost like candy) that they sold. We had already eaten but I got two peices as a snack (I was very fascinated with the wrapping of each peice and the display of so many individually wrapped peices on the wall). Then we went to a nice area that reminded us of rittenhouse square, one of the "circus" es in london but not a well-known one, and the sun was shining so we laid down and dad fell asleep. Then we headed back, and dad sat on a bench while I went into a huge H+M (but I didn't buy anything.. prices in London are ridiculous!). We headed back and rested .. dad had slept on the plane (THROUGH TAKEOFF EVEN!) and taken various naps but I hadn't slept in two days due to the time difference so I fell asleep for about half and hour until the phone rang. We didn't realize they were coming this early, but it was Sulochana (Saku's friend from going to school together and living in Sri Lanka and then England) and her son Tim. They were downstairs at our hotel, so although we were a bit sleep deprived, we quickly got ready and went downstairs to meet them. We walked around and we arrived at an Indian restaurant that we though we would try. (We ate lots of indian food before coming to India!) The food and wine was good and we had a very good time. They were both extremely nice and we ended up staying in the restaurant talking for at least half an hour after we had finished eating! They had traveled a lot (traveling seems to be easier and cheaper when you live in Europe since things are so close together) so they told us about different trips and we talked about differences between the UK and US in terms of schooling, and our families and such. They talked a bit about their jobs a bit and about Sulochana's other son, Richard (whom I'd met in Philly a few years back) and his studies of classics at Oxford. Dad eagerly tried to get Sulochana to tell him some dirt on saku's past .. but he got nothing. ;) It was a good time with lots of laughter and we are very grateful that they came into London to take us out.

London Day 2: We got up in time for the free breakfast cooked by the owners of the hotel. We had eggs, English bacon, mushrooms, sausage, tea, juice, etc. Then we got ready and went out on the bus tour - we took the original bus company although we probably should have taken the big bus company since there were more of them throughout the city - or at least there seemed to be. We sat on top and got off pretty soon after the tour started at Buckingham Palace for the Changing of The Guards.. it was packed with people/tourists so it was very hard to see much. It happens in london at the same time every day - a very formal ceremony type thing with band uniforms and horses and the whole nine yards. I would never want to be a part of that every single day, although I'm sure it's an honor. Afterward we we back on stopped at various other touristy spots in London. We took a free ferry (part of the bus tour package) down the Thames and stopped at the London Eye which we sadly did not go on. I had fish and chips for lunch (had to do that while in England of course..) and then we took the next ferry to grennich (sp?) village. There were many restaurants and shops and such there and we also went into a maritime museum and walked around the gardens of........... We eventually took the ferry back and realized from our tourist book that it wasn't too late to buy theater tickets for that night. We had a lot of trouble finding a tour bus and ended up walking to picadilly circus where we got inexpensive tickets (at least for london) in the 3RD ROW for that nights production of Avenue Q which I know the music of but have never seen in NY. We were walkingaroundto find somewhere to eat and out of nowhere there was a huge platform and red carpet etc. set up right in the area in front of a movie theater and it was PACKED with people. We found out that the UK premier of the movie Hancock (i think thats the name) was thta night and the cast came out on the red carpet.. everyone was psyched for will smith. It was a huge deal - tons set up, ltos of ppl and lots of sreaming- very random though. We got dinner at an overpriced not-so-great italian place and then saw the show. The cast was fantastic and it was a very enjoyable and creative, lighthearted production. The puppets slash acting at the same time must be really hard and we were impressed especially by the main male character who played 2 parts. We had already done a LOT of walking that day but we decided to walk all the way back from picadilly circus to the hotel on sussex gardens (off of edgeware) we stopped at another (much better) italian place for my dad to rest and my to get gelati! Which was absolutely delicious;) his mango juice was great too.. (ok ill stop rambling..) We then stopped at an internet cafe for the first time and stayed until they closed at 1 am (ish) we eventually got back and slept.

posted by Gary Klein @ 6:57 AM