Greetings!
I'm back with apologies for ducking out last week. I went on a short flight with my family to London, England. We were taking advantage of the fact that the lads both had their Autumn break from school and it happened to coincide with one of Mrs the Werelynx's quarterly conference trips to London. I hadn't had a chance to stroll around London for about 20 years. Would you like to see some pictures? I thought I'd try to divide things up in some sort of reasonable manner and share some highlights over the next few of weeks.
Mrs. the Werelynx had already been working in London for a whole day by the time that the lads and I left home and took the metro (subway) and bus out to Vaclav Havel Airport here in Prague. Of course the quick, self check-in wasn't any use for our flight. Besides, we had two bags to check in-- how is that supposed to work? Don't we still have to wait in line to check the bags in? Um, anyway-- needless to say, we got through the line and made our way past customs into the magical land beyond where miraculously prices double when they're given the "duty free" tag.
After a long wait where liquids had to be either bought in that mystical duty free zone and sealed into plastic baggies or purchased in a vending machine and where there are no toilets until you get onto the plane. This arid land of painful bladders is known as "Your Gate". The flight was without incident or frills and oddly, on a flight between two countries that have refused to join the European Monetary Union, the prices for all food, drinks and ugly watches were in Euros.
We landed at Gatwick Airport and managed to find our train into Victoria Station. We'd saved a wee bit by purchasing our tickets online and had the fun of claiming them from a machineI made three calls on my mobile phone from the train to let some people know we had arrived. The one who knew she'd be working when we arrived was glad to hear we'd landed safely. The one who had agreed to hold our hands across town to the apartment we were staying in was surprised that we'd chosen the quick option into Victoria and wasn't going to be able to escort us. And the man, whose flat we'd discovered on an online rental service, greeted us and said that he'll be expecting us in about an hour.
Mrs. the Werelynx had already arranged one of London's special public transportation cards (called 'Oyster Cards') for each of us and like good travelers we had explored the route across London through the joys of Street View before we left. And yeah (despite Google Maps not knowing that our destination was on a section of the street they didn't label or apparently acknowledge the existence of-- they'd placed the address on the wrong section of the street. Maybe that road on Google Maps is one of those errors they built in to help them prove that other sites steal their maps?) we did pretty good; arriving right on time.
Eventually our friend who had missed us at Victoria made his way over to the flat and he guided us out into a clear night in London...
More fluff after the fold.
We took the London Underground (subway, metro) to Embankment and walked along the um, embankments on both sides of the river. We watched a street magician play the crowd near the Tate Modern gallery
and then hopped on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) to Canary Wharf where we met Mrs. the Werelynx and discussed where to go for dinner.
That's about it from the first night, but there were other nights in London last week.
Thanks for stopping by; more of my trip to London next Friday.
