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I spent two days writing the story of our trip to Europe, but it fell victim to the computer. One time I tried to save it and the computer locked up. I terminated the word processor task and when I looked at the file again, it was empty. For the rest of that day I thought about what a crummy operating system windows is. The next day I hurriedly rewrote the story. That was about the only thing that went wrong. During the trip everything went right. We may have had to hurry and scramble and change routes to get things done, but in the end we succeeded. This was the opposite of our last trip to Europe. I was more worried before this trip than any other one. One blow had been losing my job. Another was my failure to get a home improvement project started. However, we were able to get the airline tickets, train passes, shuttle bus reservations, arrange for a cat sitter, and coordinate a trip with our European friends.
England, Tuesday, July 25 to Saturday, July 29
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Very early Tuesday morning, a smiling, talkative, and smart alecky Lisa picked us up from Heathrow. As Lisa drove away from the airport, Lisa said "all we have to do now is get on the correct road". Then, I saw a road sign that indicated we were heading back to Heathrow. "Is this the right way, " I asked. "Oh, no" Lisa said, "we have to turn around". But turn around we didn't and we ended up on the right road after all. I had forgotten that I needed to take everything Lisa said "with a grain of salt". She drove through the rain for awhile, until we met up with Josie and Carol, where we had our second breakfast of the day. It's funny how people can wonder why you're not eating very much even after you've told them you just ate a big meal two hours ago.
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On Wednesday morning, Lisa dropped us off at the train station. After our arrival at Waterloo Station, we took the "underground" to Victoria Station and began searching for our hotel. The only directions the hotel staff agreed to give us was "exit the train station, turn left, then right, then left and we would have no problem spotting it". I asked for street names with no avail; I think it had something to do with their lack of English skills, which foretold of minor problems to come in the breakfast room. Anyway, we knew the street address and we asked several people who were no help and one that was a little help. After many tired minutes of lugging our luggage around the crowded streets, we were able to locate the hotel. It, of course, was located in the opposite direction of our initial trek. To our relief our room wasn't bad. It was small, clean, close to the bathroom (just 3 feet down the hall), and we only had to go through six doors to get there.
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On Thursday, we had our first breakfast at the hotel and learned the hazards of trying to special order food from an English challenged staff; I never tried it again. Fortunately, the basic breakfast was good: eggs (don't ask for them over-easy), baked beans (which I always passed on after the first day), sausage, toast, yoghurt, cold cereal, and something they called juice (it would be against the law to call it that in America). All joking aside, it fueled us well for the day's activities. On our first day, we skated through the always crowded streets to Hyde Park and then along its beautiful, open expanses. From what we read, it is one of the few places around London open to skaters. Then, we skated back to Buckingham Palace. An hour or two earlier, when we had passed by it, it was empty. Now, it appeared every tourist in London had descended on this one spot, for this very uneventful event. The marching band strode by, then the guards on horseback, and that was about it.
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On Friday, we decided against taking the tour bus (about $38 for the two of us) because we had already seen about everything. Instead we took a regular bus ($3) to Trafalgar Square. We walked back to Big Ben, taking salvage for awhile from a downpour, and took some more pictures. We walked around Soho, having lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant and in the eveing saw "Chicago", which was basically about a couple of women killing off their husbands. Though we were both unimpressed by the story, it was "scenically" enjoyable to me. Again, we ate just before going to bed, this time dining on sandwiches (much better than McDonald's).
On Saturday we returned to Leicester, looking for more theater tickets. "Cats" was too expensive to me as the other agencies only had the high-priced tickets left, along with the commission. Some agencies even had some shows marked up 100%. One play, containing the songs of "Abba", was sold out for about the next 6 months. We decided to return to the half-price booth which had lines about 30 times as long as we had seen during the week. We got tickets for two shows: "Starlight Express" (again) and "A Busy Day" (a comedy). We had absent-mindedly got in line without a lot of cash, but just had enough to pay for the tickets. Looking for an ATM along the way, we went to Harrod's. The available paper maps were little help in navigating through all the rooms and floors of this ancient store. The crowds followed us into the store as well. At least we eventually spotted an ATM.
We ate sandwiches during both shows, Lyn falling asleep through a little of "Starlight Express" and me during a little of "A Busy Day". It had been quite a few busy days. In between the shows we walked along the River Thames, strolling by the London Eye, the world's biggest ferris wheel.
American Rears Too Wide For Brit Theater
Associated Press, Thursday, February 6, 2003 LONDON -- London's West End theaters survived the post-Sept. 11 tourism slump but now face another problem -- their skinny Victorian seats are too narrow for many American bottoms. That's the opinion of British lawmaker Chris Bryant, who told the House of Commons on Monday that London's "wonderful shows" were being let down by woeful buildings. "The seats were built for backsides of a Victorian era, not of a modern era - or indeed an American size - and many of the bars are dingy and overpriced and haven't seen a lick of paint since Oscar Wilde was last there," said Bryant, a member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's governing Labor Party. "Isn't it time we bashed some heads together to make sure that more investment went into these theaters so that everybody enjoyed going to a West End show?" Culture Minister Kim Howells replied: "As long as it's only heads I've got to bash together, I don't mind." Most of London's major theaters were built in the 19th century. The Old Vic, built in 1818, said its seats were a "standard size" of about 18 inches. A stagehand at the Theater Royal Haymarket, which dates from 1821, estimated seat width at 20 inches. The number of U.S. tourists visiting Britain declined following the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States but has since recovered to about 5 million a year. London theater attendance has remained stable, according to figures from the Society of London Theater, with more than 11.7 million people attending West End plays in 2001, up slightly on the year before. "This year is likely to be the first in British history when more than 12 million people will pay to go into ... London theaters," Howells said. But he said the government wanted to help theaters fix themselves up, and was awaiting a detailed report on the cost -- estimated at $330 million -- of renovating old buildings and installing access for disabled theatergoers. |