I've just been in a funky kind of mood, and didn't feel like blogging about the fact that I was home earlier than I wanted to be. In my "real vacation" I would be sitting in Philadelphia right now, waiting for my 6:05pm flight to come back to Indy. Instead, I caught that flight on Saturday night.
It was a huge disappointment when the Chunnel Fire happened. I was VERY interested to find out how few people in the United States knew about the fire. Most people I talked to this week had no idea what happened. Someone on the French side of the Chunnel brought an illegal substance into the Chunnel, and during the trip some brakes caught on fire, which caught a tire on fire, which in turn caused this illegal substance to start a big fire. It was a freak accident, something that hasn't happened in 12 years - but it randomly HAD TO HAPPEN when I was in the city. Trains were cancelled on Friday, and thousands of people were "camping" in the train station during my three hours there. From some of the people I talked to that morning, I was told that Ferries from Dover were selling out hours in advance. Sadly, I went into a panic - I was travelling by myself, and on a somewhat limited budget. I took the underground out to Heathrow, and spent a couple of hours out there, trying to get thing straightened out for a trip home from Heathrow. On Friday, Eurorail was saying that there would be no service Saturday or Sunday - and all of the flights I was looking into in Heathrow were more expensive than just flying home. I made a paniced and frustrated decision to just pack it in, and come home early.
Despite that decision, my vacation was AWESOME. And I wish my refunds from my Paris and Germany hotels were instantly applied back to my checking account - because I would spent a few more days in London. (This is what I don't understand, it takes them 30 seconds to remove the money from my bank account, but when I ask for the refund - it's going to take 2 to 4 weeks for me to see my money back into my account... Makes no sense to me. When I go to Wal-Mart or somewhere and ask for a refund, it usually posts the next day. They have my account information, there is NO REASON it shouldn't be reversed and back in my account in 48 hours. It's kind of frustrating...)
London was awesome. It was beautiful. I loved the architecture, and I loved the older feeling of the city. Walking around was awesome. Picidilly Circus and Leicester Square felt like a mini-Times Square. Not as crowded, not as many LED Boards, but just as cool feeling. Lots of theatres and restaurants all around, and a nice park in the middle of Leicester Square. Then there was Trafalgar Square, where I chilled for a good hour on my first day of walking. Just watching people. The traffic threw me for a loop for a long time, so I would just look both ways before crossing any street. The Underground was intimidating the first day - but once I studied a map of the city, and started to recognize east and west areas of town, it made the second day much easier. Had I never visited New York City it probably would have been a lot worse, but once I figured out how to read the Underground signs and knew when I wanted to go east or west - I had no trouble with it for the last few days.
My hotel was really nice. Small, but exactly what I wanted. I got a number of TV channels, and actually watched a fair amount of American TV. Trivia-Style Game Shows are HUGE over there, and I watched a number of them. I watched a comedy/trivia show called "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" which was pretty entertaining. I think I watched two episodes on the same night. I also watched two quiz-shows called "Eggheads" and "Wogan's Perfect Recall" - both were pretty interesting. The channels made available to me were pretty simple:
BBC1
BBC2
Sky News 1
Sky News 2
Sky News 3
Sky Sports 1
Sky Sports 2
Sky Sports 3
ITV1
(Channel) 4
E4
(Channel) Five
(Channel) Five US
Pretty basic and simple naming of their channels. The coolest thing was the each day, Sky Sports 2 would air NFL Today around 4pm, so I was still able to get updates on the NFL each day. I also watched a good amount of Rugby while I was in London, and I finally believe I understand the sport - despite years of Zach trying to explain it to me. I'm just a visual person, and I needed to see it all happening. It was pretty cool. I also watched some Snooker, and that was a pretty cool billiards game.
Most days, I would wake up early (8am-ish) and start out for the day. Then, I would return to my hotel around 4pm, after walking around and taking the Underground all over, so that I could drop off anything that I purchased, and I was usually pretty tired. I would watch some TV, and usually take a nap until about 8pm. At that time, I would head out looking for somewhere to eat dinner. The sad part about London is that during the week, it basically shuts down at 11pm. All the restaurants, corner markets, and bars are pretty much done at 11pm. On one night's walk "home", I did find an overnight market, and was able to pick up some snacks. Usually, I would grab a bag of chips and a soda to drink in my room, before I went to sleep for the night. I tried a number of different sodas that we don't have here in the United States. Most were not very good - specifically one called Tango. I tried their Cherry Soda, and it was horrible. They also offer an apple version that I wanted to try, but Cherry was so bad, I never did. Mt. Dew was nowhere to be found, I can only guess they don't make it available there. I drank Pepsi or Sprite most of the time. Also, Blue Moon was nowhere to be found, so when I had a beer it was always a Stella Artois. Both Doritos and Pringles offer a number of different flavors over there. Or, some of their flavors have different names. "Cool Ranch" was not the name of their Ranch flavor - it was "Cool Original" - which blows my mind, because I consider "Nacho Cheese" to be the original flavor of Doritos, instead that's known as "Tangy Cheese". I tried some "Chili Heatwave" and really liked them, they were very similar to the new "Spicy Chili" that we have here in the States. I also tried some Paparika Pringles - they weren't really as good as I expected them to be, not horrible, and I ate half the can in one night - but they weren't as spicy or tangy as I was hoping for.
Staying in the Victoria area was really cool, I was close to a lot of things, and walked to about half of the places I went. I was around the corner from Buckingham Palace, but only walked past it once - I wasn't really there to do tourist stuff, I just wanted to chill out and relax. It took a while, but one night I took the Underground up to Picidilly Circus and then walked through Leicester Square, then to Trafalgar Sqaure, and then all the way down to the waterfront, where I walked across the Millennium Bridge and over to the London Eye. I then spent a good twenty minutes sitting on a bench, looking directly across the River Thames at Big Ben and Parliament - I also gave my parents a call at this time, to see if they had heard about the Chunnel fire. It was 11pm my time, and 6pm their time.
My "extra" night in the city, I basically just did more hanging out and walking around in the Picidilly Circus/Soho area of town. Letha gave me the phone number of one of her friends that was in London, but I had trouble figuring out how to get my phone to dial her number, and eventually gave up. Half the time I tried to call back to the States, I couldn't get it to work. International calling is confusing, and country codes were problematic. When I was in Heathrow, I was trying to call my Paris Hotel, and could never get it to connect. Oh well, I just spent that last night walking around, observing more people, and taking in the city. It was a Friday night, so places stayed open much past 11pm.
No matter how my holiday turned out, I was able to get out of Indianapolis for a couple of days, I got to see a different culture and was able to get a small taste of Europe. I will begin planning a Spring Holiday to Germany - and ONLY Germany. I've decided I will NEVER attempt to travel across water via the Chunnel (on purpose, because hopefully one day I will get to ride on the Chunnel...) without having another plan. I do hope that I can make it back to London soon. If that's my only destination, then I should have a lot less stress and be able to enjoy it even more than I did this time. It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to going back. It would be a little more fun if I had someone to go with me, and share everything with, but I don't really know anyone who has the same interest as me in going over there just to hang out. It was a GREAT holiday, and I look forward to many more trips to Europe in the near future.
From Heathrow, I rode the Underground to Picidilly Circus - this was the first thing I saw when I came up from the Underground Station.
I walked to Trafalgar Square, which was a cool place to hang out.
From Trafalgar Square, you could look south and see Big Ben.
A closer look at Big Ben.
My first 500ml Pepsi!
My hotel room, nice and small and quaint.
The Hard Rock London, where I are dinner my first night in town.
The first thing I ever spend a Pound on was a West Ham United Scarf. I bought it at a street vendor near Leicester Square. It was £5.00, which is roughly ten bucks.
Kinder Surprises were everywhere - yippy! And I also tried a Bounty drink, which was basically chocolate milk with 5% Coconut Milk. It was really good, but really rich! I regularly buy Bounty Candy Bars in the international aisle at Meijer. Basically, a better version of Mounds.
My waitress at The Hard Rock sat down with me at took the time to write me up a list of some of the best bars and clubs in both London and Paris. It was pretty nice of her.
Grand Victoria Station - the upstairs train portion.
The stadium for West Ham United Football Club in Upton Park.
The Tower Bridge, with some cool war ship in front of it.
The London Bridge.
Picidilly Circus at night.These pictures can't even begin to explain how much fun I had, and sadly a number of places I went to were at night, so the pictures didn't turn out very well. It was an amazing time, I really felt comfortable there. Everyone I talked to was really nice, and really cool. The Underground Attendants were helpful and friendly I hope to make it back sooner than later. Cheers, Mate!
