London Loves the BL.

 Food, Great Britain, Travel  Comments Off on London Loves the BL.
Jul 072011
 

It’s Thursday, and I had to move out of my double room today.

Before I did that, I started to check over my camera from my trip to Westminster yesterday, and what do I find, but the UV filter on my 80-200mm lens is smashed to bits, and it’s bent into place.

I forced out the broken glass with a pencil, and tried to shake out the bits, but only so much would come out.

I knew I had to get it to a camera repair shop stat.

Note to self: don’t forget the lens brush next time, dummy. Also, add a layer of padding to the drop-in camera case.

Getting Fixed

So it was off to Calumet in SoHo in a frog-strangler of a downpour with my crappy umbrella. They pointed me down the alley to Sangean, who told me they could fix it by tomorrow for £76.

That includes a new UV filter. While I was at Sangean, I asked them where to get a decent umbrella, because the one I got at Boots was just junk.

Here’s a tip: if you need an umbrella, NEVER buy one at a chemist’s/drugstore. It will always be a disappointment. The ones in コンビニ (conbini, Japanese for convenience store) aren’t much good, either.

The advice I got lined up with common sense: buy one at a department store at the very least.

I stopped by Calumet again and got a UV filter for the other lens. I realized that I could use one for the main lens, because I’ve been shooting with nothing on it. (I left the UV filter at home. D’oh.)

England, Land of the Umbrella

After that, it was off to Marks & Spencer’s for a decent umbrella, because it was still raining like rain Armageddon, if there was such an event. (It would make a great Hollywood movie.)

Ignoring the Hare Krishna who was trying to give me some sort of book, I headed into the store and made a beeline for the men’s department. I found a good umbrella, but it’s annoyingly big.

It’s not a cane style umbrella, but it’s at least a foot and a half long. Maybe longer. It keeps me dry, but it doesn’t really fit in my backpack. So it’s maybe 2 feet long? When I get back to the States, I’ll have to hunt down a good, compact umbrella that also expands to something BIG.

All of that fiddling around aside, I needed to do something. What to do, what to do, I’m in London, time’s a-wasting. It’s raining like hell, so it had better be indoor stuff. I know, let’s go look at the document that started it all, the Magna Carta!

“My First BL Experience”

So it was off to the British Library, up by King’s Cross. (What did you think I meant?)

It’s a neat place, but it’s a bit of a pain. I had to put everything in a locker, and to use the locker, I needed a £1 coin handy. I would get the coin back when I’m done, but troublesome things are still troublesome.

I didn’t have a coin handy, and the smallest bill on me was a £20, so I had to withdraw £10 from the ATM, then bust that into 10 £1 coins, just to use the locker.

15 minutes lost.

Bring a £1 coin with you if you’re going to the British Library!

Then it was off to look at some historical books and documents. I saw some quartos by Shakespeare, and notes from other famous authors like Milton, as well as compositions by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, and the original score for Handel’s Messiah. It was all very cool. There were also famous religious texts, including the Lindisfarne Bible, the Gutenberg Bible, and the King James Bible.

And, of course, a few copies of the Magna Carta.

What? You didn’t know? There isn’t just one copy of it. In fact, as many as 35 copies of it were made, and nobody knows which is the “original,” or if there ever really was an original, but if you go to the British Library, you can see two of them.

It’s pretty cool, if you’re into that sort of thing. You can also see the Papal bull that invalidates the original Magna Carta soon afterwards, because kings are chosen by God, and a bunch of scruffy nobles cannot put limits on God’s chosen kings.

A somewhat-watered-down version was put back in force later on.

There was also an interesting exhibit on science fiction, and even a version of the TARDIS to look at, as well as an exhibit of Mervyn Peake‘s works.

The gift shop was… a gift shop. I don’t remember buying anything there.

I Said Lunch, Not Launch!

After that, it was back to Piccadilly Circus, and the Japan Centre for lunch. It was time for pork ramen and some fried chicken, Japanese-style.

Good food, although the ambiance left a bit to be desired. There are only a couple of big picnic-table-style benches in the store, and a couple of tables outside. I probably should have eaten outside, but I didn’t have sunscreen on. (The sun was back by then, and I have two settings– pasty white and sunburned. I think someone forgot to give me some melanin when I was born.)

The ramen was served in a plastic bowl with a plastic Chinese-style spoon. Eating out of a plastic bowl only does so much for me. But like I said, the food was good, and in the end, that’s all that really matters.

Another thing– when you order noodles there, you get a LOT of choices, down to 4-5 kinds of soup to put them in.

The Museum of Vague Dissatisfaction

Then it was off to Covent Garden, and the London Transport Museum, because by this point, I am completely fresh out of ideas, and I like transportation stuff.

I’m not a full-on train nerd, but I like interesting public transport in interesting places. It’s probably because the public transport where I live is dull, and because I’ve traveled a lot, so I’ve had a chance to see all the different ways people have approached the same problem. It’s interesting.

The Underground has an antique feel to it… New York’s Subway is pretty old, too, but the Underground has that crazy architecture that flaunts its age. I really get that feeling when I pull into Earls Court, with its big glass roof. It feels like someone with muttonchops and a top hat will accost me at any moment with a “Sirrah!”

I won’t say I’m a railroad/transportation nerd… I just have an appreciation for it, and I enjoy a nice train ride… and subways fascinate me as part of the underside of cities.

Okay, I’m a bit of a nerd in that regard.

So with that in mind, it looked like the London Transport Museum would hit my strike zone.

The London Transportation Museum has a really good gift shop. You can get all kinds of cool Underground-branded stuff there.

Oh, the museum? Well, my £13 got me in to see some exhibits on… err… okay, there are some cool things there, but not £13 worth. You can look at a few 19th-century mockups of Underground carriages which were interesting, and there are a few double-decker buses through the ages that you can sit in, and even the front end of one you can pretend to drive, and all of this is probably great fun.

If you’re 11 years old, that is.

There’s also a bit of London Underground memorabilia… which was somewhat interesting. I was hoping for more, really, but they only had a few cases’ worth.

And that was pretty much it.

The main problem was that there just wasn’t a whole lot there, past the vehicles. It was okay, but not worth the outlay of funds. £13 is more than $20. Yikes.

The gift shop was pretty good. I bought lots of souvenirs for friends and family.

Would I recommend it? If you have kids and money to burn, yeah, maybe? Or if you can get free admission on one of those museum deal cards. Only on those conditions. Otherwise, skip it. (But the Underground logo ice cube tray will make an awesome gift for one of my friends…)

Covent Garden itself is a really nice part of town, with street performers and food vendors all over the place, and lots of shopping, if you’re into that sort of thing. Frankly, I wish I had spent more time wandering around Covent Garden, and skipped the museum.

There’s a lot you can learn from museums, but there’s also a lot you can learn from interacting with people.

After the museum, I had pretty much hit the wall, so I limped back to the hotel, ate some sandwiches, and called it a night.

The new room is 302. It’s a single, and much bigger than 114. (It’s hard for any room not to be bigger than 114.) The bed isn’t as good as 114, but I like having enough room for my bags. Also, the TV has a kind of weird red cast to it, but since I don’t watch much TV, it’s not a big deal.

The showers still don’t do hot water properly. I haven’t had a room yet that does hot water properly. It usually goes from too hot to too cold to lukewarm, to generally unpleasant.

I haven’t had a really good shower the whole time I’ve been here.

But I didn’t really come here for the bathing.

The flight from Heck

 Great Britain, Travel  Comments Off on The flight from Heck
Jun 292011
 

I made it to London safely, but it wasn’t without a few snags. For starters, the flight was overbooked because the Sunday flight was cancelled, and they were trying to cram as many people on board as possible.

There was no way a mere $800 voucher was going to lure me away from taking my rightful crummy uncomfortable seat on the plane.

After the delay of sorting out who was going to get to board and who was not, we all got on the plane, and sat there at the gate.

And sat there.

And sat there.

We sat there for two hours because there were thunderstorms in the area, and the ground crews weren’t allowed outside to service the plane until the storms had passed for about 15 minutes.

So we sat there some more.

We finally got off the ground at about 8:15 p.m. or so– horribly late, but it couldn’t be helped.

I sat next to a nice guy from Kenya who was very big. Not fat, mind you, just a big, strong person. So we were both a little uncomfortable as we were crammed into those tiny little seats with our bulky bodies. And the guy sitting in front of me was headed to Afghanistan, so I agreed to let him recline a little. I know he’s not going to get much in the way of comfort for a while, so it was the least I could do.

Because no good deed goes unpunished, and I was sitting right in front of the bulkhead, I suffered for my kindness. I had all of 3 inches of reclining room. My knees were bruised when I got to London.

I’m never sitting in front of the bulkhead again.

Well, not in coach, anyway.

Arrival in London

We got to Heathrow at around 8:50 a.m. London time, completely blowing everyone’s schedules to bits, and causing just about everyone who had a connecting flight to miss it.

Lucky me, I didn’t have a connection to make.

Border control was uneventful. The line was long and moved slowly, but uneventful.

One thing you might want to keep in mind– they want the address of the place you’re going to be staying at in the UK for the landing card, so it would be useful to print that out, or write it on your hand, or something.

Customs was nonexistent. There was nobody there to check my bags for anything. I spent all of that effort to get all of those doctors’ notes, only to find out that nobody here cared.

Dammit, or is it yay?

Should I be upset that I wasted the effort, or I happy that I didn’t have to go through the frustration of having my bags forcefully unpacked again? Am I an idiot or what? Of course I’m happy that I didn’t have to go through the hassle of a customs inspection.

Sort of.

I suppose I should explain first. You see, I travel with a few medications. So in order to travel with this medicine without getting a nice pair of steel bracelets from angry border officials, I like to make sure I have all of the necessary paperwork done. The last time I went to Japan, even though I had the right paperwork, I still got hassled.

Before heading to the UK, I spent about 2 weeks trying to find out just what the hell the rules were, and got all kinds of interesting answers. I played all sorts of variations of phone tag, one version of which included a Home Office official claiming that the Home Office did not have jurisdiction over controlled substances.

This is the equivalent in the US of a DEA agent saying, “We don’t handle drug offenses.”

Eventually I found a web page on the Home Office website with some loose guidelines, and just closed my eyes and got as many notes and papers as I could.

Turns out it was all a waste of time, because apparently nobody in England cares about what’s in my bags when I get off the plane.

So while I was relieved that I didn’t have to go through a forced unpacking and lots of paper-shuffling, I was still irritated that I had wasted so much effort gathering paperwork.

One of my doctors even charged me $25 US for a travel letter, and wouldn’t even write the thing until I had sent him the money.

How Do I Get to Earls Court?

Getting to the hotel from the airport was a bit tricky, mainly because I had never done it before, so I was completely confused. I have to admit in a moment of honesty it’s kind of fun in a strange kind of way to be dropped in a strange city and have to figure out where to go next.

I found the Heathrow Express to Paddington just fine, but missed the first train. The second train pulled in, but we were told that we weren’t allowed to ride it unless we had first class tickets, which is just as well, because it turns out that it was going to stop at every station along the way. There’s no express in that.

Finally, I could get on the third train, which showed up after about 10 minutes total of waiting. Not bad.

I pulled into Paddington, and was slightly bewildered. So many places to eat. I was hungry, tired, and carrying tons of junk with me. I was glad I only had the one suitcase, but I was wishing the backpack didn’t weigh 35 pounds. It didn’t feel that heavy, just really bulky.

I finally figured out where the Tube was, and made my way there. Then I saw a sign that regretfully informed me of “Severe Delays” on the District Line, which was supposed to take me to Earls Court.

Well, that’s no good.

So I stared at the sign, in hopes that some more useful information would come forth.

It didn’t come forth.

I stared some more, because I was jet-lagged and feeling a bit dumber than usual.

It still didn’t come forth.

I saw a window with a sign that said “Tickets and Assistance.” “Well,” I thought, “I could use some assistance.” Naively, I stood in line. Then I overheard a woman complain bitterly in German that the people behind the window were very “unfreundlich.”

I lowered my expectations appropriately, and the man behind the window did not fail to disappoint. When I asked him how I should get to Earls Court, he said “Go to platform 1 and take a bus.”

And that was that.

I have no idea what lies at platform 1, or which buses I can take, so I stared stupidly at the bus map for 10-15 minutes until giving up, grabbing a Tube map, and just figuring out that if I ride enough trains, I can go around whatever is clogging up the District Line.

So I did just that. I rode the pink line, whatever it’s called, to Hammersmith, and caught the Piccadilly line there to go to Earl’s Court.

By the way, there are no lifts at Earls Court for luggage right now. Fun.

I highly recommend not traveling at all with luggage if you can possibly swing it.

I’m serious.

I have been party to some pitiful scenes, and seen many more pitiful scenes of others like me carrying bloated, obscenely heavy suitcases through places they were not meant to be carried.

Places like Earls Court train station.

Or JR Nara.

But there are far worse places than those two.

All Your Base2Stay Are Belong to Us

Anyway, I made it to the hotel after 2 hours of fumbling around on the trains, and managed to dump my bags there and freshen up in the hotel’s WC.

Then it was off to Gourmet Burger Kitchen for lunch, which was a chicken sandwich, chips (fries–whatever), and lots of lemonade with no free refills, and then off to Marks & Spencer’s for foodstuffs.

After check-in, the nice folks at Base2Stay had kindly moved my bags into my room for me (thank you very much), so all I had to do was drop off a few things, and head to Car Phone Warehouse to pick up a Vodaphone pay-as-I-go SIM card for my phone.

That evening, I found a little Italian place that made a decent cheese pizza, because I like to eat pizza when I’m jetlagged.

The sun sets at 9:45 p.m. or so, and rises at around 3:45 a.m. Very weird. It’s making me goofy already.

This blog is protected by Dave\'s Spam Karma 2: 3159 Spams eaten and counting...