Jun. 30th, 2011 | 11:12 pm
They lied. London bridge isn't falling down---in fact, it's in darn good shape.
The day after we got in to Horley, we walked the five minutes to the handy dandy little train station and got our tickets into London. We made a point of getting to our appointed breakfast time so we wouldn't have a repeat performance of the massive hunger pains knawing away at our tummies. We ran into an older couple who seemed to be world travelers and I asked them what was a "must see" in London, and the woman remarked on the crown jewels saying they were well worth it.
We ended up right next to the entryway, but neither one of us could bring ourselves to fork over money to look at someone else's jewels, we are just too practical for that. Even with my discount (I quickly figured out London does the disability discount on lots of things) Mom's admission was going to be around $50.00. We took a quick survey and decided on the hop-on, hop-off tour (or in my case, wheel- on, wheel- off tour.) I got my butt out of the chair and went on the top of the bus, I've always wanted to do that and it morphed into a hot, sunny day.so we got a nice tan along with a history lesson. Not a bad way to spend the day.
I enjoyed London. For all it's traffic you didn't hear horns blaring or angry voices. Pedestrians cross at the lights, so though it was busy and bustling with activity, I didn't feel overwhelmed. The city itself was very accessible as many ramps were avaliable and the lights were long enough to cross with.. Friends had warned me to stay off the tubes so we did, instead riding the different tour lines.
Pre-bus tour we hit Buckingham Palace and caught the tail end of the changing of the guard, we were both surprised at how close you can get to Buckingham Palace. I mean the queen can't even look out her front window because people are draping themselves all over her fountains. :-)
Mom said she could just look out the back. It really was impressive watching people saunter around like they owned the place. Oh wait a minute, they do:-)
We caught the tail end of the changing of the guard. Would have loved to see the whole production, but the train made us late and as directionly challenged as we are, it took us awhile to head in the right direction for the palace.
I should have asked Mom to take a pic of me up on the top of the tour bus but it took us forever to get up there, so I guess I couldn't be too demanding. It had a New York favour, but it wasn't rushed. It was all pretty much as I expected and I was surprising comfortable there. I would have loved an extra day as their National Galleries are FREE to enter. (Toronto needs to adopt this program for the amount we spend to support the arts) Anyway, we found the galleries at 5:45pm and they closed at 6PM. That's the disadvantage of the bus tour. The tour routes are long and with the wheelchair it was difficult to take advantage of the hop on/hop off option. You can't spend 10 minutes loading/unloading a chair. Anyway, we did take a cruise down the Thames river as well, as we made our way under the bridge to the tower of London (where we were too cheap to view the jewels) Instead, we had lunch right under THE EYE. I was so close I could see the people standing up in the glass cube. That was close enough ,thanks. The original price for the tube was 4.50 pounds ($7-8 per person) It's now 18.00 pounds. We would have done it if we wanted to, but it ended up being a pretty warm day, so we were content to cruise on the water and avoid the long line of "Eye Spies." :-)
One of the first things we noticed about London, the cars all look like they just came off the showroom floor. No kidding, nary a scratch on one. It was bizarre. I felt like I was on the set of a 40's/50's movie. The cars were "new" but they had the look of another era.
We spoke to someone on the ship about this and he mentioned that the British car market is pretty much non-existent now. They get their cars from China and a couple of years ago, the government offered big incentives (aka money) for people to get their older vehicles off the road. It worked.
London also has a "congestion tax" (10 pounds per car, per day) which makes people think twice before heading into London. Again, it showed. Though busy, it was very controlled. Mom enjoyed the fact that written right on the road was the direction pedestrians should look for traffic. "Look Right." A reasonable amount of time to cross at the lights helped too. Noone was dashing across at a dead run as the light was turning red (hello Toronto) it was really nice.
The ads/painting on the business cars/taxis were colourful/eye catching. We found ourselves looking for ads and comparing finds "Look at that one, did you see that?" Absolute tourists.
I have to tell you, we loved the train station. You could actually understand all of the train announcements, they were clear as a bell, and people actually listened for them. Same with Gatwick airport, you didn't have the public service announcement of "please mind your bags" every 15 minutes on a loop like Toronto. I guess London figures you know how to look after your own stuff like an adult.
Should I tell you that we went for a walk around the block and lost the station? Probably not, but in our defense, the bus station was right there too and we eventually got straightened out. :-)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_
Additions to my Vocabulary in London
Cheers
Brilliant
Right
Toilets (don't say washrooms they don't know what you mean)
Lift --Mom loved this one, she said it was easier to ask for than an elevator
Queue-British word for a line.
Petrol-- They don't call it gas
Probably lots more, it was amazing to hear the different use of words even just from region to region
Interesting Fact About London-- It's hard to find garbage cans. We would find small piles of garbage (rubbish to them) both in public buildings and on the streets, eventually someone would come by with a broom/stick with a box on the end and clean it up.
An American woman who had been living there for 2 years said "there aren't any" when we asked where the garbage cans were. I guess it's London's dirty little secret. :-)
The Rest of the London Pictures
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v624/CindyM99/United%20Kingdom/London/
The day after we got in to Horley, we walked the five minutes to the handy dandy little train station and got our tickets into London. We made a point of getting to our appointed breakfast time so we wouldn't have a repeat performance of the massive hunger pains knawing away at our tummies. We ran into an older couple who seemed to be world travelers and I asked them what was a "must see" in London, and the woman remarked on the crown jewels saying they were well worth it.
We ended up right next to the entryway, but neither one of us could bring ourselves to fork over money to look at someone else's jewels, we are just too practical for that. Even with my discount (I quickly figured out London does the disability discount on lots of things) Mom's admission was going to be around $50.00. We took a quick survey and decided on the hop-on, hop-off tour (or in my case, wheel- on, wheel- off tour.) I got my butt out of the chair and went on the top of the bus, I've always wanted to do that and it morphed into a hot, sunny day.so we got a nice tan along with a history lesson. Not a bad way to spend the day.
I enjoyed London. For all it's traffic you didn't hear horns blaring or angry voices. Pedestrians cross at the lights, so though it was busy and bustling with activity, I didn't feel overwhelmed. The city itself was very accessible as many ramps were avaliable and the lights were long enough to cross with.. Friends had warned me to stay off the tubes so we did, instead riding the different tour lines.
Pre-bus tour we hit Buckingham Palace and caught the tail end of the changing of the guard, we were both surprised at how close you can get to Buckingham Palace. I mean the queen can't even look out her front window because people are draping themselves all over her fountains. :-)
Mom said she could just look out the back. It really was impressive watching people saunter around like they owned the place. Oh wait a minute, they do:-)
We caught the tail end of the changing of the guard. Would have loved to see the whole production, but the train made us late and as directionly challenged as we are, it took us awhile to head in the right direction for the palace.
I should have asked Mom to take a pic of me up on the top of the tour bus but it took us forever to get up there, so I guess I couldn't be too demanding. It had a New York favour, but it wasn't rushed. It was all pretty much as I expected and I was surprising comfortable there. I would have loved an extra day as their National Galleries are FREE to enter. (Toronto needs to adopt this program for the amount we spend to support the arts) Anyway, we found the galleries at 5:45pm and they closed at 6PM. That's the disadvantage of the bus tour. The tour routes are long and with the wheelchair it was difficult to take advantage of the hop on/hop off option. You can't spend 10 minutes loading/unloading a chair. Anyway, we did take a cruise down the Thames river as well, as we made our way under the bridge to the tower of London (where we were too cheap to view the jewels) Instead, we had lunch right under THE EYE. I was so close I could see the people standing up in the glass cube. That was close enough ,thanks. The original price for the tube was 4.50 pounds ($7-8 per person) It's now 18.00 pounds. We would have done it if we wanted to, but it ended up being a pretty warm day, so we were content to cruise on the water and avoid the long line of "Eye Spies." :-)
One of the first things we noticed about London, the cars all look like they just came off the showroom floor. No kidding, nary a scratch on one. It was bizarre. I felt like I was on the set of a 40's/50's movie. The cars were "new" but they had the look of another era.
We spoke to someone on the ship about this and he mentioned that the British car market is pretty much non-existent now. They get their cars from China and a couple of years ago, the government offered big incentives (aka money) for people to get their older vehicles off the road. It worked.
London also has a "congestion tax" (10 pounds per car, per day) which makes people think twice before heading into London. Again, it showed. Though busy, it was very controlled. Mom enjoyed the fact that written right on the road was the direction pedestrians should look for traffic. "Look Right." A reasonable amount of time to cross at the lights helped too. Noone was dashing across at a dead run as the light was turning red (hello Toronto) it was really nice.
The ads/painting on the business cars/taxis were colourful/eye catching. We found ourselves looking for ads and comparing finds "Look at that one, did you see that?" Absolute tourists.
I have to tell you, we loved the train station. You could actually understand all of the train announcements, they were clear as a bell, and people actually listened for them. Same with Gatwick airport, you didn't have the public service announcement of "please mind your bags" every 15 minutes on a loop like Toronto. I guess London figures you know how to look after your own stuff like an adult.
Should I tell you that we went for a walk around the block and lost the station? Probably not, but in our defense, the bus station was right there too and we eventually got straightened out. :-)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_
Additions to my Vocabulary in London
Cheers
Brilliant
Right
Toilets (don't say washrooms they don't know what you mean)
Lift --Mom loved this one, she said it was easier to ask for than an elevator
Queue-British word for a line.
Petrol-- They don't call it gas
Probably lots more, it was amazing to hear the different use of words even just from region to region
Interesting Fact About London-- It's hard to find garbage cans. We would find small piles of garbage (rubbish to them) both in public buildings and on the streets, eventually someone would come by with a broom/stick with a box on the end and clean it up.
An American woman who had been living there for 2 years said "there aren't any" when we asked where the garbage cans were. I guess it's London's dirty little secret. :-)
The Rest of the London Pictures
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v624/CindyM99/United%20Kingdom/London/
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