So, when we last left the story, two bobbies were dragging our baggage through the streets of London...
Thanks
to the gps on their phones, we found the place and they bid us farewell
(I wish I could have captured this on film but it was at that moment
that we figured out Mom had the wrong memory card in the camera so the
thing came to a dead stop.)
After a quick knock on the door,
Anne came out to greet us. We were all befuddled as to why the text
from Mom's phone hadn't gone through as she indicated that she had been
waiting to hear from us....
Anyway, she walked us over to a door
in the fence. (The homes in this area are close to the sidewalk --think
brownstones in Boston)
The door had a keypad for a code and a
lock on it that needed a key to open it (the keys in England reminded
me of those which you might need to open the heavy door of a
castle--you'll see what I mean in later pics as the cottage we stayed
at had a similiar key and I took a pic)
Anyway, this is what we
opened the door to. I must admit, I was bitterly disappointed at first
sight as I felt like I was going down into a dungeon. It's hard when you
feel like you can't move/get out of a place and honestly, I felt really
trapped. That said, it was the perfect location and at $110 Canadian a
night during the olympics, we couldn't have done better.
After
Mom had a bit of a nap, we ventured out. We wanted to get a feel for
things, but we were also getting hungry and knew that we didn't want to
go without something for much longer.
Immediately, you notice
that the air is crisp/clean without the god-awful humidity that seems
to be becoming the trademark of our summer here. As soon as the air hit
me, I felt myself relaxing, the tension/stress was ebbing from my body
as Mom pushed me along the sidewalk, pointing things out as we wemt. We
just walked. We knew that we wanted to head toward the Thames, knew we
were close, but didn't bother to ask directly, as we were happy getting
the lay of the land on our own. Mom had gone on a mad hunt for another
memory card for the camera, but couldn't find it, swearing up and down
she had packed extras. I'm not going to lie. I was getting pretty
annoyed as I was already minus my wheelchair cushion, I hadn't been
able to sleep in the small/stuffy "dungeon" and now we had no camera.
It turns out, when I travel for 20 hours straight I'm prone to mood
swings:-) Happy for the cool/fresh air unhappy I can't get comfortable
or take pics...
Then we found the waterfront again...instant
recognition and pure joy from seeing my Big Ben standing there so
regally, just waiting for me....big Ben and french fries on the
waterfront with people milling around with bikes/kids and
ice-cream...Some things are universal.
Fact: London likes garlic
mayo on fries..wish I had tried it but Mom thought I wouldn't like it
so didn't get any for me...We saw it in stores later but they were
bottles and I didn't want to try that much, in case I didn't like it.
It
turns out, we could cut through side streets for
a faster route to the water. What took us an hour the first day, would
take five minutes in later trips. We went home early that first night,
knowing that we were both done, but it was a nice way to end the day.
The one blight on the evening was the flying of the helicopters over
the bridges. Later, a bobby would try to say it was for crowd control
in the nearby olympic village/venue space, but we only saw them
meticulously flying over the bridges in a repeat pattern. Looked to us
like they were very worried about London Bridge falling down...
We
could hear the planes flying overhead from our little place, that's how
close the waterfront actually was. Every 15 minutes, all night. Not
good for someone who is a light sleeper anyway:-) So, it was an
adjustment coupled with me sleeping on the floor (yeah, I'll pass on
sleeping with Mom --something I would later cave on and do in the name of
getting some much needed sleep.)
The next day, we ended up
buying a new memory card (after an extensive hunt for a store) So,
here's pics of our first full day in London, yeah, we found the next
Starbucks on our travel list...
Imax theatre with athlete pics on the side
St. Paul Cathedral---view from a mall...
Lunch
in the park. Londoners were enjoying the outdoors as it was "only the
second nice day in months" according to the locals..people were
sprawled out everywhere with their "take-away."
Walking across Millennuim bridge...closer to St Paul's...
In
front of the Modern Tate--honestly I thought this place was boring.
Free entry but you had to pay for special exhibits so there isn't much
to see if you don't want to pay.
This
was hilarious. We literally stumbled in to London Borough Market. We
planned on going the next day (if we could figure out where it was) and
just found it as we walked along. Stuff was soooo cheap. Five peaches
cost a pound, roughly 1.55 canadian. Here, one peach cost me $1.10 the
other day. We went from stall to stall checking things out and again,
literally stumbled into these people as we went along...We were asking
the man in the apron (John) about the history of the market and the
Scotsman who was selling peaches next to him, wandered over into this
impromptu pic...It's so different there. People WANT to talk to you.
They are proud of their history and where things come from. We'd known
these people for five minutes yet look at their faces, look how happy
they are...We didn't ask to have this pic taken, it happened in a flash
as John said "you guys need a pic of the spirit of our market..." So
cool and something I will always remember. Such warmth and simplicity,
we need more of it.
Tower
Bridge I'm sure Mom's feet where falling off by now as we wandered the
city, but she never complained. Weather held out nicely and let's face
it, looking at the olympic rings that closely wasn't bad either!
This
is the other side of Tower Bridge..A former jail, where they now keep
the crown jewels. We didn't go in, it's expensive and I really have no
need to pay to see someone's excessive collection of jewels :-)
I
have no idea why these images won't turn themselves upright in my posts
as I did re-save them and turn them upright...<sigh> Anyway,
beautiful Ben at twilight as we made our way back to the waterfront
Here's a link to Big Ben chiming at the end of the day...I tried to embed it but couldn't get it to work through photobucket. I'm laughing at the end because Mom got the date wrong..It was the 26th..and I threatened to make her re-shoot it.
Big Ben chiming at the end of the day...
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v624/CindyM99/?action=view¤t=MVI_3611_1.mp4
The eye as night falls...
We
didn't go on it, it's pretty expensive, and sitting in a stuffy glass
bubble doesn't really apeal to either of us. They seemed very practiced
at moving lines along so wait times were never an issue. I was so glad
that this was on a Thursday, earlier in the day, we had had lunch at a
pub overflowing with people. Thursday is their big pub day so you see
business men spilling out onto the sidewalk in their pinstripe suits
clutching a beer and having a good gab. It's a social right of passage
as we saw it in all areas of the city as we walked throughout the day.
It's in such stark contrast from here where even at rest people clutch
their cell phones waiting for their next text...They seem to enjoy each
other as friends/colleges and not worry about their phones.
The waterfront was busy but it wasn't overcrowded. Activity was the name of the day, but people weren't closing in around us.
High-flying
swings...I almost got sick watching them. A new ride since last year,
you couldn't pay me to go on this one. We got video, and you could hear
people screaming like fiends. Again, sorry it's sideways--file keeps
saying it's read only and won't let me turn it around.
LOL poor
Mom has so much trouble figuring out when the vid feature was on/off on
her camera as you had to push the button and keep your finger on it to
keep the vid going. Anyway, here's a clip.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v624/CindyM99/?action=view¤t=MVI_3618_1.mp4
"Ring of Fire" show in honour of the olympics..Very cool to see all of those torches in one place.
The
next day, we were at loose ends. It was the day of the opening
ceremonies so we weren't sure how crazy everything would be. I had
wanted to see the changing of the guard but Mom thought it would be
nuts...In the end, we decided to just start walking. So glad we did,
what a great experience. We literally walked from our place to downtown
London. On the one hand it was a ghosttown, on the other there was this
vibrating energy in spots as you got closer to the centre of it all...
Waterloo
station. A couple blocks from our place and a hub for getting to the
olympic venues the day of. This was fairly early in the morning...you'd
think it had been any other day. When we came back to it later in the
afternoon, you could feel the tension in the air and the securty
clampdown as Mom whizzed right past a security guy on our way in and he
called us back. They were handing out free ice cream bars. It was cool
to watch everyone rushing past gobbling down their treat.
A
piper serenated us as we crossed over the bridge (honestly, I had a
hard time keeping track of which bridges we crossed over at any given
time.) It drove mom crazy as I would say "which bridge is this again?"
everytime we crossed over one. The people use bridges over there like
we use sidewalks.
In front of Hyde Park where the screens for the opening ceremony were being set up
We literally stumbled in to the Supreme Court building and they offered
us a free tour of the courtrooms upstairs. We took the elevator up to
find a security guy standing outside so we thought he was going to come
in with us...Nope. I snapped this quickly not knowing if we were even
supposed to take pics...Mom as a Supreme court justice...looks pretty
comfortable up there! I object! :-)
Westminster Abbey--Love how people just sit outside and eat lunch. So nice to see it being appreciated in such a simple way.
We
finally made it to Buckingham Palace --good thing as they were starting
to shut it down for opening ceremony traffic (around 3:30 pm) These
guys were kind enough to pose with me on the way in. They wear the same
uniforms as Canadian soldiers (which is I guess where you can still see
the connection to the monarchy.)
Sharp
shooters on the roof of Buckingham Palace. While we were there, we also
saw one of the gates open and out came the guards' guns. I give full
credit to their police force, when they talked to you about the
security they didn't make a big deal about it, but they were clearly
there. Once again, the helicopter whirled overhead...
As we got
closer to downtown, and they day progressed, you saw the bobbies
spreading out, I remember saying to Mom "Look around us, they're on
every corner." They did it so quietly you hardly noticed, but they were
there.
Display of flags we found downtown...Where's Canada?
Ben from a different angle.
