Becky made a phone call from somewhere along the way to extend our pre-booked stay in Hounslow, just outside London near Heathrow airport, from one day to two at the (what is now) notorious "Civic Guest House."
Well, after an exciting dash down the various English motorways we arrived safe and sound in Houndslow, a bit lost but eventually we did find our lodgings. A seemingly nice lady checked us in and requested would we please make full payment in advance...this should have been a warning sign. Lodging in London at the end of our trips continues to be a problem. We like to turn in our rental cars at Heathrow (no driving in London, no, no, no) and then rely on public transport to get us around. It's convenient having a hotel near the airport but they are either VERY expensive or turn out to be simply awful places. We thought we might be onto something good with the Civic (after all it was rated TWO STARS back in 1997!)...which just goes to show you how wrong we can be when we really try. The place is AWFUL! The rooms were dingy, smelly and generally gave the impression that we were staying in some kind of a flop house! Ah well, any port in a storm and tomorrow has been designated a "free day" in London. We have decided that we will to go our separate ways on this last day of the trip and everyone gets to do whatever they want.
Monday, March 12
Becky, Awanna and I decided to head over to the Notting Hill area and check out the scene there while Daniel decided he was more interested in seeing the Royal Air Force Museum and their "Battle of Britain" display. We headed our separate ways setting a time to all meet at about 5:30 at the City of London Museum.
Notting Hill was nice but alas, no market on Mondays - still there were some lovely flower and veggie stalls. We visited the bookstore that the one in the Hugh Grant movie (Notting Hill) was patterned after. We bought a few "must have" books.
Awanna spied a primary school with children playing in its playground and being the retired primary school teacher she is felt compelled to go over to speak to the lovely English waifs. Turns out they were really wee demons from hell and no matter how sweet and nice she tried to be Awanna was subjected to some of the most abusive, foul language imaginable...made even me, a big tough logger guy, blush. Becky and I hustled Awanna out of there before someone called the cops on us for creating a scene.
We decided to hail a cab and head over to see the art at the National Gallery. Our ride took us quite near Buckingham Palace where huge crowds seemed to be forming. The ladies asked what was going on here and the cabbie informed us that they were about to change the guard..."OH MY GOD, STOP THE CAB" they cried! "We simply can't miss this!" Me, I could care less about such things but was kidnapped as the two women, in full "royal pageantry fever" made the driver pull over, shoved money at him and bailed out the door (see picture below).
I informed the womenfolk that I would not be subjected to this sort of foolishness, tourist-like behavior and grabbing my trusty map headed off towards what I thought was Greenwich to prowl the antique shops. I had gotten about 100 yards before realizing I had no idea in this world where I was and even though I'm considered somewhat of an expert cartographer could make no sense of my map at all. Sheepishly (see picture below) I returned to the mob scene around the palace and found Becky and Awanna (Awanna's bright red coat was always pretty easy to spot in the predominantly black and somber crowds). I explained my problem to them and asked Becky to please point out on the map where exactly we were. She glanced at my map and explained to me that what I had was a map of Edinburgh. Ok then.
The rest of the day was spent with me in Greenwich looking for naval artifacts, Becky and Awanna shopped the tonier areas of downtown London (including Floris Perfume, Hatchard's Books and Fortnum and Mason's fabulous "grocery store" on Piccadilly) and Daniel visited the RAF Museum. We hooked up at the scheduled time at the scheduled place, ate our last meal in London at a Mexican food place (actually quite good...but different). We then headed back out to the Civic Guest House for a last night's rest (not really very restful as a crew of men working in the area had moved in downstairs and insisted on partying all night...including turning the wall beneath our second story window into a urinal...ugh, disgusting).
Tuesday, March 13
We rose early to a very mediocre FEB. The guest house had arranged two cabs for us (where one had always done it in the past) that turned out to be unmarked (and unlicensed, we strongly suspect they were someone at the hotel's brothers) with no radios, the drivers hardly speaking English and when time came to pay them finding they carried no change so we ended up by having to give them an INCREDIBLE big tip...a final ripoff. At Heathrow we said adios to Daniel (who had a later flight bound for Wichita) made our flight and we were outta there!
As one can plainly see from these pictures taken upon arrival at San Francisco, jet lag was not our friend.
Spaced out and tired to the bone we couldn't help but be amused at the feeble attempts made by the U.S. at keeping foot and mouth from being brought in by we tourists. Signs...that was all, no foot baths, no disinfecting, nothing, nada.
All in all, a great trip! I felt as though we had spent too much time in the car trying to cover too much ground, but if I had to make a choice about what I would have skipped I could not tell you. Everything goes together into making trips like this one memorable, the ups, the downs..it's all part of the journey. Next time we go though I'm gonna make sure to...
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