ADVENTURES IN LONDON AND BERLIN
I don't really like posting unflattering photos but this photo above marks the time when things went downhill for me whilst wandering around London. We took a tour of the splendidly beautiful city of Bath---it was breathtaking---and upon visiting the "baths" which are really a series of pools built by the Romans which were excavated by the British and upon which the whole city of Bath was built upon, I began to sneeze uncontrollably, my nose began to run, my face began to swell, head aching, head bursting sensation, and voila---serious allergic reactions to whatever it was that coated "Bath". It was bad.
Here's a fun place where one can spend a full day and not get bored---the famed British Museum where antiquities abound. We had a great time studying wondrous exhibitions of great relics from thousands of years before Christ was born. I began to think of how utterly ignorant and arrogant we can be in thinking that just because the great peoples of ancient times existed before our so-called sophistications, that they could not be capable of wondrous achievements in art, science, architecture or even building great edifices and mammoth structures. Oh but it was staggering to be in the midst of great antiquities.
This photo above was taken on our 26th wedding anniversary. Yep---why not in Stonehenge? It was a beautiful English day until we got to the entrance to Stonehenge and it began to rain heavily! Undaunted, we opened our umbrellas and bravely circled around. Halfway through, the rain mysteriously stopped and suddenly, the sun shone warm enough to dry us up by the time we completed the revolution. Oh it was a wondrous day!
***************************
This summer, we decided to embark on a tour of London and Berlin since our son Jordan was spending all of his Spring term with a coterie of BYU students studying Victorian authors as they trekked along from Glasgow to London for six weeks. Thus started-- if I may steal from the great bard himself, a somewhat divine comedy of errors.
The first mistake I made was being duped into flying with Virgin Atlantic. They advertised more room in economy with the commensurate higher fare, of course. WOW. What a crock. I get more room flying with Singapore Airlines and Asian people are supposed to be smaller with shorter legs! Their seats are SO narrow and legroom so minimal that a long 10 hour flight was hell. Never will I fly Virgin Atlantic again even if they have direct flights from Vegas to London. It would have been better to cut the flights in two to get a break from sitting like a pretzel.
Second mistake was flying into Gatwick Airport instead of Heathrow. Gatwick is further out from London and I was lured into taking the "direct" flight since Virgin did not have a direct flight from Vegas to Heathrow. Sadly, I can only blame myself for this mistake because I should have done my due diligence in researching this significant detail.
Third mistake was assuming that a cab ride from the airport to the hotel would be reasonable. Every site I checked assured me that the ride from Gatwick should cost at the most, £85 which would be about $170. But that's not what happened. Our arrival coincided with some kind of parade for the Queen and every road that led to our destination was blocked. So, after £125!, which translates to $250, the cab driver dropped us off at an underground train station (aka "The Tube") and gave us instructions to get off at Waterloo and then take another cab to our hotel which should only be a mile away from that stop. Well, while we were on the train with our huge suitcases, we discovered that the train stops at "Tower Bridge" which according to our Hilton site was the nearest Tube stop and a mere walking distance from the hotel. So, since our Tube tickets already cost us £9 each which translates to nearly $55, totaling a staggering $305, we've already spent on transportation to our hotel, we decided to get off at Tower Bridge. Brilliant idea because as it turned out, stopping at Waterloo would have cost us more. The sad part is, when we got off the train, we had to lug our suitcases up about 3 flights of stairs and then when we finally reached the ground, it was raining and our hotel was still not in sight. Magically, a cab appeared so we jumped in the cab. After nearly £17, we reached our hotel. Transfer total from Gatwick to our hotel? A whopping $339 later, we arrived. Travel time from Gatwick to our hotel: over THREE hours of luggage-toting-pulling-dragging plus all those stairs-that-never-seemed-to end whilst fighting our way through mobs of people underground. Egads. I was no longer in a good mood by then. (Note: The closest tube stop to the hotel was a mere 5 minute walk: London Bridge stop on the Jubilee line...)
The Hilton London Tower Bridge hotel is located a mere 5 minutes from the London Dungeons where Kurt's infamous relative, Guy Fawkes, was imprisoned and tortured. How apropo. But the hotel is plush and wonderful. We were upgraded to the executive floors with free use of their lovely executive lounge where oodles of wonderful drinks oozed and flowed...not to mention lovely snacks and cakes from 6am to 11pm. Plus free breakfast. That was nice. The beds were comfortable and plush. I love the European sheets and blankets. And chocolates on our pillows. That was a wonderful gift after our harrowingly expensive excursion from Gatwick.
What I loved about London: the brilliant museums. I could have spent more time browsing around. It was also Korean festival so there was a lot of commotion around Leicester Square. We walked around and by this time, we were experts on getting anywhere on The Tube. Yeah. It's all so easy to get anywhere once you're in London if you know how to maneuver The Tube and you don't have a heavy suitcase that you have to lug around.
Highlights of our London Trip: Watching "Wicked" and having dinner at Chez Gerard. Watching "The Complete Works of Shakespeare: Unabridged" which was a funny improv on the great bard's works by three clever Yanks of all people. But it was hilarious and enjoyable. Going on the all-day tour of Windsor Castle, Bath and Stonehenge was fabulous and a good decision on my part to purchase the tickets ahead of time. And of course, seeing the unbelievable paintings in the National Art Museum and the antiquities exhibits at the British Museum.
Our flight to Berlin was fun but I got so sick the day before whilst at Bath. As I went further and further down into the tunnels of the ancient Roman geothermal pools, my eyes began to water and swell and my sneezing became annoying. Then, my head began to swell, my nose got runny and plugged up and for the rest of the day, I was basically miserable. When we arrived in Berlin, Kurt took us to dinner and I had some sausage. That basically made me even worse and my stomach did not forgive me for the next couple of days. So I missed one concert and a tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, riding the U-bahn and S-bahn, and Checkpoint Charlie. Yeah, I was in the hotel close to the bathroom. But I did get to watch a wonderful Harpsichord Concert at the famed Concert Hall at Gendarmenmarkt next to the German catherdral which was a beautiful structure. Our hotel balcony opened up to this cathedral and our views were always spectacular. I did get to see most of the sights via the double-decker tourist bus but one thing I really, really REGRET is not being able to see any of the museums especially the Pergamon Museum which I SO wanted to see.
Shopping is crazy in London because of the power of the British quid or rather, the woeful buying power of the US dollar which was worth only half the British pound. And the cost of things really, really is doubled. For example, fish and chips cost £12 which would be $24!! Quite a huge amount to pay for fish and chips. It's definitely NOT a good time for Americans to visit England...unless you study out where you can get cheaper meals or bring your own food. Everytime, we had dinner, it was at least $200. Marks and Spencer, my favorite British retail store, now has little markets around where they sell only food. It is a good place to start. But while in Berlin, we did get Hannah a cute dress and shirt. I wish I had more time to shop but oh well.
Our flight home was another story. Woeful. the flight was a straight 10.5 hours from London to Vegas via Virgin Atlantic. Never again. There were 450 passengers on both levels and I swear we were the only Yanks. There was some kind of Celtic athletes' reunion in Vegas. (6,000 of them will meet here in Vegas this week...egads!) Hence, about 80% of the passengers were smelly MEN and Brits. Some were huge and some were tiny. But the common thing they all had was....ALCOHOL. Crap. SEVEN hours of imbibing. The cabins started to reek of alcohol, bad breath and pee pee mixed with whatever horrible air freshener the flight attendants sprayed occasionally. We had the exit row seats so there was some space in front of us. Unfortunately, it was also across the galley where about eight men would gather to line up for more beer and gin and tonic. Sometimes there would be about six large men in front of me wearing athletic shorts, their butts staring at me straight in the face and their beer-bellies were double the size of a basketball. One guy had poop stains on his pants. Kill me! Here's the kicker: we asked for any class upgrade because we weren't going 10 hours cramped and curling like pretzels but unfortunately, the flight was full and the only upgrade available were the exit row seats. We paid an extra $600 for them! I've never heard of paying for bulkhead seats before.
Anyway, so sorry but the Brits I'd seen so far didn't particularly dress well. They woefully lacked the panache of Barcelona-ites or perhaps, Italians, so aesthetically, not that that is important---but under the circumstances, they LOOKED bad AND smelled bad! London isn't exactly your mecca for fashion either. Neither was Berlin.
Seven hours into the flight, the pilot finally announced that no more alcohol will be served. The flight attendant told us that was a first in her books. I was ready to swear at Richard Branson.
The last thirty minutes of the flight was sheer hell. It was like being on a roller-coaster but in painfully SLLLOOOOOOW motion. Hence....like being in a....BOAT on a rough sea. By the time we were SLOWLY taxi-ing on the tarmac, I was fit to be tied and hanging by a thin thread. I mean, I started having irrational thoughts like....can I open the exit door before the flight attendant can stop me...or I want to scream now "GET ME THE HELL OUTTA HERE!"....or, what if I fall apart, as in, go bonkers and ask the stewardess to pullleeeze let me out FIRST...or, should I throw up on the floor to show Virgin A how I feel or should I snatch the airsick bags? That sort of thoughts. I was fighting those thoughts with counting, concentrating on a spot in the galley, thinking of songs in my head, or imagining how it would feel to be home in my own bed or getting in the car to get home. But then I started thinking about driving home and I thought...I should sit in the front seat with the aircon blowing in my face. (One of our attorneys was picking us up....) Then I couldn't remember WHICH SIDE OF THE CAR I WAS SUPPOSED TO GET IN coz for a while, I got confused with the Brit cars and then that made me even more sick coz I got disoriented. I swear, if the pilot decided to circle one more time, I was simply going to completely, utterly LOSE IT. By the time I got to the baggage carousel, I was just holding on to the airplane food I had consumed and looking for the nearest trash can since there were NO toilets in the controlled baggage and immigration area. So by the time I got home, I was just SICK SICK SICK. After a full night's sleep, I am feeling so much better and already consumed the huge Cadbury block of fruit and nut in milk chocolate.
Next summer, we'll tackle China. And you can pretty much bet that this poor woman is definitely flying FIRST CLASS for any flight that will take longer than six hours.
Can't hardly wait.
The first mistake I made was being duped into flying with Virgin Atlantic. They advertised more room in economy with the commensurate higher fare, of course. WOW. What a crock. I get more room flying with Singapore Airlines and Asian people are supposed to be smaller with shorter legs! Their seats are SO narrow and legroom so minimal that a long 10 hour flight was hell. Never will I fly Virgin Atlantic again even if they have direct flights from Vegas to London. It would have been better to cut the flights in two to get a break from sitting like a pretzel.
Second mistake was flying into Gatwick Airport instead of Heathrow. Gatwick is further out from London and I was lured into taking the "direct" flight since Virgin did not have a direct flight from Vegas to Heathrow. Sadly, I can only blame myself for this mistake because I should have done my due diligence in researching this significant detail.
Third mistake was assuming that a cab ride from the airport to the hotel would be reasonable. Every site I checked assured me that the ride from Gatwick should cost at the most, £85 which would be about $170. But that's not what happened. Our arrival coincided with some kind of parade for the Queen and every road that led to our destination was blocked. So, after £125!, which translates to $250, the cab driver dropped us off at an underground train station (aka "The Tube") and gave us instructions to get off at Waterloo and then take another cab to our hotel which should only be a mile away from that stop. Well, while we were on the train with our huge suitcases, we discovered that the train stops at "Tower Bridge" which according to our Hilton site was the nearest Tube stop and a mere walking distance from the hotel. So, since our Tube tickets already cost us £9 each which translates to nearly $55, totaling a staggering $305, we've already spent on transportation to our hotel, we decided to get off at Tower Bridge. Brilliant idea because as it turned out, stopping at Waterloo would have cost us more. The sad part is, when we got off the train, we had to lug our suitcases up about 3 flights of stairs and then when we finally reached the ground, it was raining and our hotel was still not in sight. Magically, a cab appeared so we jumped in the cab. After nearly £17, we reached our hotel. Transfer total from Gatwick to our hotel? A whopping $339 later, we arrived. Travel time from Gatwick to our hotel: over THREE hours of luggage-toting-pulling-dragging plus all those stairs-that-never-seemed-to end whilst fighting our way through mobs of people underground. Egads. I was no longer in a good mood by then. (Note: The closest tube stop to the hotel was a mere 5 minute walk: London Bridge stop on the Jubilee line...)
The Hilton London Tower Bridge hotel is located a mere 5 minutes from the London Dungeons where Kurt's infamous relative, Guy Fawkes, was imprisoned and tortured. How apropo. But the hotel is plush and wonderful. We were upgraded to the executive floors with free use of their lovely executive lounge where oodles of wonderful drinks oozed and flowed...not to mention lovely snacks and cakes from 6am to 11pm. Plus free breakfast. That was nice. The beds were comfortable and plush. I love the European sheets and blankets. And chocolates on our pillows. That was a wonderful gift after our harrowingly expensive excursion from Gatwick.
What I loved about London: the brilliant museums. I could have spent more time browsing around. It was also Korean festival so there was a lot of commotion around Leicester Square. We walked around and by this time, we were experts on getting anywhere on The Tube. Yeah. It's all so easy to get anywhere once you're in London if you know how to maneuver The Tube and you don't have a heavy suitcase that you have to lug around.
Highlights of our London Trip: Watching "Wicked" and having dinner at Chez Gerard. Watching "The Complete Works of Shakespeare: Unabridged" which was a funny improv on the great bard's works by three clever Yanks of all people. But it was hilarious and enjoyable. Going on the all-day tour of Windsor Castle, Bath and Stonehenge was fabulous and a good decision on my part to purchase the tickets ahead of time. And of course, seeing the unbelievable paintings in the National Art Museum and the antiquities exhibits at the British Museum.
Our flight to Berlin was fun but I got so sick the day before whilst at Bath. As I went further and further down into the tunnels of the ancient Roman geothermal pools, my eyes began to water and swell and my sneezing became annoying. Then, my head began to swell, my nose got runny and plugged up and for the rest of the day, I was basically miserable. When we arrived in Berlin, Kurt took us to dinner and I had some sausage. That basically made me even worse and my stomach did not forgive me for the next couple of days. So I missed one concert and a tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, riding the U-bahn and S-bahn, and Checkpoint Charlie. Yeah, I was in the hotel close to the bathroom. But I did get to watch a wonderful Harpsichord Concert at the famed Concert Hall at Gendarmenmarkt next to the German catherdral which was a beautiful structure. Our hotel balcony opened up to this cathedral and our views were always spectacular. I did get to see most of the sights via the double-decker tourist bus but one thing I really, really REGRET is not being able to see any of the museums especially the Pergamon Museum which I SO wanted to see.
Shopping is crazy in London because of the power of the British quid or rather, the woeful buying power of the US dollar which was worth only half the British pound. And the cost of things really, really is doubled. For example, fish and chips cost £12 which would be $24!! Quite a huge amount to pay for fish and chips. It's definitely NOT a good time for Americans to visit England...unless you study out where you can get cheaper meals or bring your own food. Everytime, we had dinner, it was at least $200. Marks and Spencer, my favorite British retail store, now has little markets around where they sell only food. It is a good place to start. But while in Berlin, we did get Hannah a cute dress and shirt. I wish I had more time to shop but oh well.
Our flight home was another story. Woeful. the flight was a straight 10.5 hours from London to Vegas via Virgin Atlantic. Never again. There were 450 passengers on both levels and I swear we were the only Yanks. There was some kind of Celtic athletes' reunion in Vegas. (6,000 of them will meet here in Vegas this week...egads!) Hence, about 80% of the passengers were smelly MEN and Brits. Some were huge and some were tiny. But the common thing they all had was....ALCOHOL. Crap. SEVEN hours of imbibing. The cabins started to reek of alcohol, bad breath and pee pee mixed with whatever horrible air freshener the flight attendants sprayed occasionally. We had the exit row seats so there was some space in front of us. Unfortunately, it was also across the galley where about eight men would gather to line up for more beer and gin and tonic. Sometimes there would be about six large men in front of me wearing athletic shorts, their butts staring at me straight in the face and their beer-bellies were double the size of a basketball. One guy had poop stains on his pants. Kill me! Here's the kicker: we asked for any class upgrade because we weren't going 10 hours cramped and curling like pretzels but unfortunately, the flight was full and the only upgrade available were the exit row seats. We paid an extra $600 for them! I've never heard of paying for bulkhead seats before.
Anyway, so sorry but the Brits I'd seen so far didn't particularly dress well. They woefully lacked the panache of Barcelona-ites or perhaps, Italians, so aesthetically, not that that is important---but under the circumstances, they LOOKED bad AND smelled bad! London isn't exactly your mecca for fashion either. Neither was Berlin.
Seven hours into the flight, the pilot finally announced that no more alcohol will be served. The flight attendant told us that was a first in her books. I was ready to swear at Richard Branson.
The last thirty minutes of the flight was sheer hell. It was like being on a roller-coaster but in painfully SLLLOOOOOOW motion. Hence....like being in a....BOAT on a rough sea. By the time we were SLOWLY taxi-ing on the tarmac, I was fit to be tied and hanging by a thin thread. I mean, I started having irrational thoughts like....can I open the exit door before the flight attendant can stop me...or I want to scream now "GET ME THE HELL OUTTA HERE!"....or, what if I fall apart, as in, go bonkers and ask the stewardess to pullleeeze let me out FIRST...or, should I throw up on the floor to show Virgin A how I feel or should I snatch the airsick bags? That sort of thoughts. I was fighting those thoughts with counting, concentrating on a spot in the galley, thinking of songs in my head, or imagining how it would feel to be home in my own bed or getting in the car to get home. But then I started thinking about driving home and I thought...I should sit in the front seat with the aircon blowing in my face. (One of our attorneys was picking us up....) Then I couldn't remember WHICH SIDE OF THE CAR I WAS SUPPOSED TO GET IN coz for a while, I got confused with the Brit cars and then that made me even more sick coz I got disoriented. I swear, if the pilot decided to circle one more time, I was simply going to completely, utterly LOSE IT. By the time I got to the baggage carousel, I was just holding on to the airplane food I had consumed and looking for the nearest trash can since there were NO toilets in the controlled baggage and immigration area. So by the time I got home, I was just SICK SICK SICK. After a full night's sleep, I am feeling so much better and already consumed the huge Cadbury block of fruit and nut in milk chocolate.
Next summer, we'll tackle China. And you can pretty much bet that this poor woman is definitely flying FIRST CLASS for any flight that will take longer than six hours.
Can't hardly wait.
No comments:
Post a Comment