England Scotland Travelogue - Day One

Sunday, May 21, 2000 London

This was a long day. It really started yesterday in Nashville on our flight to Toronto which was ok. Our layover in Toronto had good and bad points. Good: It was short. Bad: Pearson is a lousy airport. No gate notices, poorly designed. Lousy. The trip here wasn’t too bad. The flight was full and I honestly slept through most of it. Sheryl wasn’t able to, mainly because she’s such a light sleeper. This of course affected her throughout today.

We arrived in London about 6:30 AM GMT. Customs was no problem and we caught the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station, which was great, since our B & B is only three blocks away, within sight of Paddington. No bears around though. We dropped our bags off at Barry House and headed out. We took the Tube out to Piccadilly Circus in search of the Tourist Info Center, but since it was only 8AM, it wasn’t open yet. So we ended up having breakfast at a traditional British restaurant, McDonald’s I think it’s called, and then decided to head to the Tower of London.

The Tower was pretty good. We did an audio tour, which was interesting to both me and Sheryl, but that was mainly because we both like history. It was mainly about prisoners and such. A minor problem perked up when rain started. I was ok, but Sheryl’s anorak wasn’t heavy duty enough for English rain and she got pretty wet.

We toured through the White Tower, seeing a lot of weaponry and an original copy of the Domesday Book. To see a 1000-year-old book was… amazing, even though that word hardly describes it. We saw the Crown Jewels as well, which made me wonder if such opulence is only for us, the paeans, since I would imagine that if someone were around it all the time, it would be old hat (no pun intended).

We left the Tower about 12:30 and had lunch, fish and chips. We decided to forgo the British Museum today, since we were exhausted, go get Sheryl a new jacket and head back to the B&B. We tubed to Piccadilly and wandered around for a bit. We found the TI and got some good info. The woman from Scotland was talky, but helpful. We found a sporting goods place, Lillywhites, and I found a great Manchester United jersey, but didn’t get it, yet. We found Sheryl a new jacket and finally Tubed back to Barry about 4.

Our room is small with a double only and a shower and toilet and desk. It’s functional and faces the street. We can hear a lot.

We slept from 5p to about 10p. We got up and put our stuff away and got organized for tomorrow, which should contain St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, and Westminster Abbey. Of course, today was supposed to contain the British Museum and we didn’t manage to get there, so we’ll see what happens.



2005 Thoughts
Post Trip Thoughts
Day Thirteen
Day Twelve
Day Eleven
Day Ten
Day Nine
Day Eight
Day Seven
Day Five
Day Four
Day Three
Day Two
Day One of the trip
Intro