Europe Days 1-6: London

Wednesday, June 26:  I had told the family that we were all going to travel with one carry-on bag each, and perhaps a single backpack between us.  Remarkably, each of us managed to do so with little struggle.  We arrived at IAD with plenty of time to get to our gate for our Iceland Air red eye to London, via Reykjavik.  The only reason we were flying Iceland Air was that it had enough free seats using my American Airlines miles.  The gate agents indicated that the flight was full, and rigorously enforced their smaller-than-usual size limitations for carry-on bags (22x8x14, instead of 24x9x14).  Kirsten and Spencer’s failed, because they had books packed in the outer compartments.  Even after we removed books, the gate agents insisted on gate checking their bags.  When we boarded the 757-200, we found that the bins were voluminous and mostly empty.  We muttered under our breath about nasty gate agents while our takeoff was delayed an hour due to thunderstorms in DC.  The captain assured us that our connections would be held for us in Reykjavik. 

Thursday, June 27:  We landed at Reykjavik at 7 am local time.  When trying to board our connection to Heathrow, the gate agent discovered that Spencer and I had tickets to Gatwick, unlike the rest who had tickets to Heathrow.  That was the first time I’d noticed that – I had booked the tickets in two different transactions, since I did not have enough miles for all five of us when I first booked the tickets.  I was assisted during the second transaction by an AA agent, who I had instructed to match the first reservation.  She assured me that she had done so, and I saw that the flight arrival times were the same in both Iceland and London, and looked no further.  Nor did the agents in DC point this out when they gate checked Spencer’s bag to Heathrow.  They were too busy being bag Nazis instead of being helpful.  The line-level agent in Reykjavik said that there was no way that she could change it.  I asked for a supervisor to please come over, and the line agent repeatedly told me that the supervisor could do nothing but sell me two new tickets.  Fortunately, the supervisor displayed more common sense, and promptly let us board the Heathrow flight with the rest of my family, hand writing new seat numbers for our Heathrow flight on our Gatwick boarding passes.  

The red eye flights were icky, as usual.  Jennifer and I had an open seat between us, and the seat pitch was a generous 33 inches, but it’s impossible to get comfortable during a red-eye in economy class.  We dozed as much as we could, but arrived in London bleary and tired.  For me it wasn’t much different from most nights since my leaky neobladder was installed.  Welcome to my world, I told the kids.  I’m still awaiting their sympathy.

When we picked up the two bags from bag check, we found that the retractable handle on Spencer’s bag had been completely torn off.  This was my old Delsey bag that had served me faithfully for years.  We were not about to tour Europe with a broken roller board, so we made out way over to the baggage claims desk.  They took one look at the broken handle, and rolled out three new bags, and told us to choose.  Only one – a hard sided spinner -- was a true carry-on size; the other two would have to be checked.   We selected the smallest spinner, unpacked and repacked Spencer’s bag, and abandoned the broken Delsey to its ignomious fate. 

We stumbled out of baggage claim in search of an ATM to get some pounds.  I tried withdrawing cash and found that the transaction was declined.  I tried another ATM and it too was rejected – this time, it said that my card had expired.  Duh!  Note to self:  before traveling aboard, check the expiration dates of your ATM cards.  Fortunately, Jennifer’s worked, and we added poundage to our collection.  As we went to the hotel to drop our bags, I wondered if the entire trip was going to be a comedy of errors. 

I knew that the best way to get over jet lag when traveling overnight from the US to Europe was to just push through the first day.  Much as the kids wanted to take a nap, I pushed them out of the hotel and into the center of London.  We walked from Waterloo Station, past the London Eye and saw the monstrous line to that steroidal Ferris wheel, and decided we might do that later.  We walked across Westminster Bridge to Parliament, and then decided we were starving.  We entered the first pub we found and ate some really horrible fish and chips, and bangers and mash.  Bad call.  We ambled up the road, past the spot where Charles I was beheaded in 1649, and ran into a parade of the Horse Guards.  Photo nirvana for Jennifer!  We then sat on the lions at Trafalgar Square, only to be whistled at by a nervous Nellie bobby worried that we Americans would somehow slip off those venerable statutes, lose our grip, fall and land on our heads or other tender body parts, then try to make a claim at Old Bailey.  I wasn’t about to do so, but he was rather insistent in his tweeting, so eventually we decided it was time to move on.

At the top of Trafalgar Square, we paid homage to the statute of George Washington, presented by our very own Commonwealth after the second time we bailed the British out a World War.  I guess they had to grit their teeth and say thanks, but I did notice more pigeon poop than usual on George’s head.

We knew we were running on fumes, but Jennifer was insistent that we see Covent Gardens.  It was one of her favorite places when she was here with me in 1985, and a couple of times during the 90’s when she joined me on business travel.  We ambled over to discovery to our horror that Covent Gardens had been turned into the little brother of the Tyson’s Corner mall.  Bleah.  I have no interest in Gap or H&M or Coach or any of those other stores (except for the Apple store).  Now thoroughly dog-tired, we shuffled back to Waterloo Station and to our train to our the hotel, and crashed for the night.  My pad was soaked more deeply than usual, so it took longer for me to awaken from my incontinental drip. 

Friday June 28:  I woke up at 6 or 630 am, voided (again), then tried to slumber some more.  The family started showing signs of life at about 8.  We got out of the hotel at around 9 am and made our way over to St. Paul’s, where an enthusiastic guide gave a 90 minute fire hose of information, most of which went in one ear and out the other.  After we were released from our tour and sat for a moment to rest our eardrums and our feet, we made our way up the 500-plus steps to the top of the dome (pausing at the whispering dome level that does not work, at least with thousands of tourists down below and hundreds ringed around the inner base of the dome), and up to the top to the dome, where we were rained on while we slowly pushed our way past throngs of slow-moving tourists.  I was glad we were not like them, I told Jennifer, as others pushed their way past us. 

We made our way over to the Globe Theater, where we had previously booked groundling tickets to Macbeth – the only Globe tickets available during the 5 days were in town.  We stood next to the stage for nearly three hours watching an excellent performance in period costumes.  It was a lot of fun, but our feet were tired at the end!  Billy Boyd (Pippin in the Lord of the Rings trilogy) was cast as [forget the name, its Macbeths friend in Act 1 who is killed but whose son escapes] He was having fun when he came back as a ghost to torment Macbeth.  Spencer yelled “Go Pippin” during the encores.  We also saw the actors who played Macbeth, King Duncan, and Lady MacDuff exit while we were waiting for the women to emerge from the loo.  It was the best 5 pounds we spent while in the UK.

Our feet tired, we then took at taxi to the British Museum, where the kids looked at the Rosetta Stone, then ran out of gas.  They consented to wait for a bit while Jennifer and I looked at the rest of the Egyptian loot, the Assyrian winged bulls and lion hunt, the Elgin marbles, and the other spoils of the British Empire.  They wanted to see the mummies, so up we went.  They called it quits thereafter – we still had some residual jet lag, I think – so we went and ate some Korean bi bim bap.  I also stopped at the Car Phone Warehouse store and bought prepaid SIM cards for our three quad-band phones, so now we can call each other for 10 pence a minute instead of Verizon’s $1.49 or $1.99/min roaming rate, plus I have Internet access on my phone.  Then to the hotel to sleep.

Saturday, June 29:  Our first sunny day. We got to Portobello Road at about 11 am, where we slowly oozed along with thousands of others up the famous market.  The kids didn’t understand why Mom was singing “Portobello Road” from Mary Poppins.  We found little of interest, however, other than a café with a full English breakfast.  We then walked to Kensington Palace and laid on the grass for an hour or so, dozing.  We had little interest in seeing the actual palace interior, not caring about Victoria or Diana or Will and Kate.  Jennifer found some pictures of flowers in the sunken garden, and was happy to amble on. 

Our next objective was the Churchill War Bunkers, so we daringly boarded a double-decker bus that appeared to be moving towards the center of town.  Just past Wellington Arch, we ran into horrible traffic.  The driver ended the route early, parked the bus, shut it off, and got off.  All us Americans in the second level kept looking at each other like, what’s going on?  The driver poked his head up, saw us all, and said, “What are you doing?  I’m done!  Get off!”  Well, then. We eventually learned that many streets were closed due to a gay pride march.  We hailed a cab, but when we told him where we wanted to go, he said that we were better off to walk through St. James Park to get there, so we did.

The kids and I had been interested in seeing the Churchill Bunker and Museum, but by the time we got there we were pretty knackered.  We walked through the bunkers and got to the museum, only to find that it was put together by a director with ADHD. It made no sense whatsoever, and instead was an unfocused jumble of artifacts and displays. I’d read at least 4 books about the man, and named Spencer in part after Winston Spencer Churchill, so I’ve been kind of fond of the fellow, and even I found the museum a letdown. 

We then made our way over to the Eye, just across the River Thames, where I had pre-booked tickets for a 6:30 ride.  The line put to shame anything in Disney World:  A wait to get the tickets, then a huge snaking queue to get into the wheel itself.  We waited in line for 90 minutes to make one loop on the big Ferris wheel.  Waaaaay overrated.  Truly a once in a lifetime experience. 

Better pub food for dinner, at the Cabbage Patch in Twickenham, near the hotel.  But we still didn’t get in until after 10 pm.  I realized that we were pushing it too much.

Sunday, June 30:  To honor the day of rest, we slept in until 10:30 am.  I even managed to doze after my frequent awakenings.  We had two hotel rooms, and put the boys in one and the girls in another.  Garrett and Spencer played rock paper scissors for the trundle bed.  The A/C in our room was broken, and each day the temperature crept up a degree, until the last day it was 26C. 

Spencer decided he wanted his own day off, so he stayed the hotel where he slept some more, went over to the adjacent health club, did a hard workout, grazed on some food, did some reading, went into town for an AA meeting, had some dinner, and come back to the hotel.  Good for him for naming his needs and doing what it takes to meet his needs.  I’d told each of the kids before we left that this 24/7 family time might wear on us, and that we each needed to be aware of when we needed some time to ourselves. I’m sure that we all will be seeking our own rest days from time to time.  The last thing I want it to be so exhausted and snappish that we are hating each other and our vacation. 

At around midday on Sunday, the rest of us went to the Tower of London, where we enjoyed a wonderful tour by the Beefeater guards (possibly the best acting job in London).  We ate ice cream while waiting in line to see the crown jewels.  The kids were less impressed than I thought they would be – I guess they’re so used to seeing bling and fake rocks, that seeing the real things was underwhelming.  As Kirsten said, “there’s so much of it that it seems fake.”  We poked our heads in the White Tower, saw more armaments and the like, and decided that we were done with projections of power by empires for now. 

We jumped upon the Circle tube line out to Kew Gardens, where we spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying the beautiful gardens, greenhouses, groves, tree walk, and outdoors pleasure than emanates from beautiful living spaces.  Jennifer felt a much greater sense of balance there than anywhere else that we had been in the UK.

We ate an excellent Italian dinner in Richmond, which only got us more excited for the next leg of our journey.  We also decided to abandon the rest of our London itinerary, and spend tomorrow in the countryside.  I booked a rental car on my iPhone while at dinner, and while everyone else went home, I went to Heathrow to pick it up.  I reasoned that we were checking out and moving to a hotel near Gatwick to catch our early flight to Italy in July 2, and renting a car cost less than train tickets for the 5 of us.  Budget gave me a Citroen DS5, which is a 5 passenger station wagon (or “saloon”) with a long trunk (or “boot”) to hold our bags.  It wasn’t until I got in the left front door and saw there was no steering wheel that I remembered that this was the UK.  And it was a manual too!  Fortunately, I was by myself while I was figuring out how to work the GPS, shift with my left hand, drive on the left, look out the mirrors in reverse order, and find out hotel.  But I survived. 

Monday, July 1:  We were out the door by 8:30 am, with the car packed and ready to go, before I remembered that I had left the passports in the safe of the hotel room.  Glad I remembered.  We fit in the DS5 quite nicely, and rode out to Stonehenge – someplace Jennifer and I had always wanted to go, but had written it off for this trip.  It is in the middle of a field by a road, and is as strange and inexplicable as ever it has been.  Way cool. 

We then drove up to Bath, where supposedly my father’s ancestors are from.  I didn’t have time to look for relatives, so we instead ambled around the center of town, popping in shops and soaking up the feel of that beautiful country town.  After a pleasant afternoon, we drove back to Gatwick.  I dropped the family off at the Courtyard Marriott (I was using my accumulated points for the rooms), and returned the car.  Did you know that diesel is about $9/gal in the UK? And gas is about $8.50/gal?  We in the states have it pretty good. 

We ate dinner at the Marriott, which has been the single most expensive dinner on our trip so far.  Not the best, by any means – just the priciest.  

We fly to Rome tomorrow morning.