London Trip!

I just returned from a trip to London, England on Sunday. Ostensibly the reason for the trip was an invite by RBW, but I split the savings with kvogel and added a few days for shopping and seeing shows. We'd both already been to London (ages ago, but we'd seen the usual sights), so this trip would focus on books, West End Theatre and museums.



Flying has gotten SO much nicer with iPods, LCD screens and multiple channels of video and direct flights. The flight out was about nine and a half hours and the time passed quickly. I had thought London would be miserable and freezing, but the weather was surprisingly like Seattle's: drizzly and cool, but surprisingly warm (in the high fifties during the day and only into the high forties during the night). I didn't need an umbrella until the last day! Loved it!

This trip report will be separated into activities, instead of chronologically. This part is all about London highlights.



First of all London is *beautiful* at Christmas time! I'd never been there in the winter and they put decorations up everywhere! And not just plastic Santas, as seen in the above picture.

The hotel (The National Royal) was minimal, but cheap and close to a good Tube station (London's subway). The escalators in some of the stations reminded me of that scene from "An American Werewolf in London"! The subway system here is amazing: clean and the trains arrive every two minutes or so! Most trips only took about 10 minutes, from leaving the hotel to arriving at the destination station!

One way to kill the time in the two whole minutes between trains is to watch the rat olympics. At certain stations, these guys were all over the track beds. Is this a rat or a mouse? If a rat, then it's a tiny rat (those pipes are just over an inch in diameter). Steve embarrassed me by loudly exclaiming (in a happy, excited voice) about all the rats down there (you're a tourist in someone else's land! Be polite!).

I loved the atmosphere in London this time of year: very festive. One night we encountered a large group of carolers singing bawdy versions of the usual songs. I also liked being surprised by random dragons all over town!

Speaking of which, can someone identify what the different (obverse?) images are on the backs of the pound coin?

Here are more pics (for this part of the trip report).

Finally threw off my cold yesterday (my other souvenir)! Still waking up at 3am, but I get so much done at that hour that I'm not fighting it that much.

London Trip!

I just returned from a trip to London, England on Sunday. Ostensibly the reason for the trip was an invite by RBW, but I split the savings with kvogel and added a few days for shopping and seeing shows. We'd both already been to London (ages ago, but we'd seen the usual sights), so this trip would focus on books, West End Theatre and museums.



Flying has gotten SO much nicer with iPods, LCD screens and multiple channels of video and direct flights. The flight out was about nine and a half hours and the time passed quickly. I had thought London would be miserable and freezing, but the weather was surprisingly like Seattle's: drizzly and cool, but surprisingly warm (in the high fifties during the day and only into the high forties during the night). I didn't need an umbrella until the last day! Loved it!

This trip report will be separated into activities, instead of chronologically. This part is all about London highlights.



First of all London is *beautiful* at Christmas time! I'd never been there in the winter and they put decorations up everywhere! And not just plastic Santas, as seen in the above picture.

The hotel (The National Royal) was minimal, but cheap and close to a good Tube station (London's subway). The escalators in some of the stations reminded me of that scene from "An American Werewolf in London"! The subway system here is amazing: clean and the trains arrive every two minutes or so! Most trips only took about 10 minutes, from leaving the hotel to arriving at the destination station!

One way to kill the time in the two whole minutes between trains is to watch the rat olympics. At certain stations, these guys were all over the track beds. Is this a rat or a mouse? If a rat, then it's a tiny rat (those pipes are just over an inch in diameter). Steve embarrassed me by loudly exclaiming (in a happy, excited voice) about all the rats down there (you're a tourist in someone else's land! Be polite!).

I loved the atmosphere in London this time of year: very festive. One night we encountered a large group of carolers singing bawdy versions of the usual songs. I also liked being surprised by random dragons all over town!

Speaking of which, can someone identify what the different (obverse?) images are on the backs of the pound coin?

Here are more pics (for this part of the trip report).

Finally threw off my cold yesterday (my other souvenir)! Still waking up at 3am, but I get so much done at that hour that I'm not fighting it that much.

London Trip!

I just returned from a trip to London, England on Sunday. Ostensibly the reason for the trip was an invite by RBW, but I split the savings with kvogel and added a few days for shopping and seeing shows. We'd both already been to London (ages ago, but we'd seen the usual sights), so this trip would focus on books, West End Theatre and museums.



Flying has gotten SO much nicer with iPods, LCD screens and multiple channels of video and direct flights. The flight out was about nine and a half hours and the time passed quickly. I had thought London would be miserable and freezing, but the weather was surprisingly like Seattle's: drizzly and cool, but surprisingly warm (in the high fifties during the day and only into the high forties during the night). I didn't need an umbrella until the last day! Loved it!

This trip report will be separated into activities, instead of chronologically. This part is all about London highlights.



First of all London is *beautiful* at Christmas time! I'd never been there in the winter and they put decorations up everywhere! And not just plastic Santas, as seen in the above picture.

The hotel (The National Royal) was minimal, but cheap and close to a good Tube station (London's subway). The escalators in some of the stations reminded me of that scene from "An American Werewolf in London"! The subway system here is amazing: clean and the trains arrive every two minutes or so! Most trips only took about 10 minutes, from leaving the hotel to arriving at the destination station!

One way to kill the time in the two whole minutes between trains is to watch the rat olympics. At certain stations, these guys were all over the track beds. Is this a rat or a mouse? If a rat, then it's a tiny rat (those pipes are just over an inch in diameter). Steve embarrassed me by loudly exclaiming (in a happy, excited voice) about all the rats down there (you're a tourist in someone else's land! Be polite!).

I loved the atmosphere in London this time of year: very festive. One night we encountered a large group of carolers singing bawdy versions of the usual songs. I also liked being surprised by random dragons all over town!

Speaking of which, can someone identify what the different (obverse?) images are on the backs of the pound coin?

Here are more pics (for this part of the trip report).

Finally threw off my cold yesterday (my other souvenir)! Still waking up at 3am, but I get so much done at that hour that I'm not fighting it that much.