June 5-6: Getting to England
The first two days were mostly spent flying from LAX to London Heathrow for 11 hours on Virgin Atlantic and losing eight hours in the time change. The flight went fine despite its duration. We flew on a Boeing 747. They served pretty good food for an airline and they easily accommodated my non-dairy preferences. There were TV screens in the back of the seats and they gave us headphones to watch movies, TV shows, and listen to CD’s and radio stations. We could also track our flight to London with the skymap feature that showed us where our plane was on its course. When we boarded we received these gift bags with a siesta mask, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a pen, our earphones, and some other things. They served us breakfast in addition to dinner and also came around at intervals to give us juice, water, or tea.
We landed at Heathrow on time (11:45 AM, June 6) and after getting our one checked bag and having our passports stamped we found the place to redeem our Visitor Travelcard vouchers. This Travelcard would give us a ticket to the Tube (also called the Underground, London’s subway, though for them “subway” means pedestrian underpass) for seven days and all zones. My wife purchased the vouchers at a travel agency, Flight Centre, before we left on our trip. We caught the Picadilly line of the Tube that took us to Gloucester Road station in South Kensington, the station closest to our hotel. After some navigating and getting used to the cars driving on different sides of the street than in the U.S. we found our hotel, Aston’s Budget Studios that is actually part of a building comprised of studio apartments. We checked in and were given a larger studio than we planned. Our studio was on street level and despite it being reportedly larger, the bathroom was very small.
After unpacking we took to the Tube to the Hyde Park Corner station. From there we walked north along the eastern edge of Hyde park. The initial cloudy weather had cleared up and it was getting warm. The weather would remain fairly warm and sunny for the entire trip, except for the afternoon in Bath when it rained a bit. Along the east end there was this beautiful path lined with trees, part of it for bikes/rollerblades and part of it for walkers. We arrived at the northeast corner and saw the people gathered at Speakers’ Corner. Every Sunday on Speakers’ Corner people are allowed to just get up on their soapboxes (both literally and figuratively) and speak about whatever they wanted. Most of the speakers we saw seemed to be religious evangelists, though I noticed some people in one audience holding Iraqi flags.
From Hyde Park we walked towards Oxford Street taking advantage of the English “subways” or pedestrian underpasses that were very extensive. Signs kept us from getting too lost. We walked down Oxford Street to Selfridges department store. My plan was to get some breakfast food there so I could have breakfast at our apartment while in London. We found the food hall but first needed to find the ATM. In the process of searching for the ATM we saw much of the store, a rival of Harrods. All the ATM’s in Selfridges were out of order so we purchased the food with credit card and the left the store to have dinner.
After finding an ATM on a street corner we had dinner at Pret a Manger a popular healthy sandwich chain in England. They served sandwiches, salads, and baguettes: sandwiches made with small French bread loaves that seemed to be a popular fast food in England. After dinner we returned to our apartment. We found an ATM and small grocer, Harts, close to our apartment and I got some more breakfast food there.
The first two days were mostly spent flying from LAX to London Heathrow for 11 hours on Virgin Atlantic and losing eight hours in the time change. The flight went fine despite its duration. We flew on a Boeing 747. They served pretty good food for an airline and they easily accommodated my non-dairy preferences. There were TV screens in the back of the seats and they gave us headphones to watch movies, TV shows, and listen to CD’s and radio stations. We could also track our flight to London with the skymap feature that showed us where our plane was on its course. When we boarded we received these gift bags with a siesta mask, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a pen, our earphones, and some other things. They served us breakfast in addition to dinner and also came around at intervals to give us juice, water, or tea.
We landed at Heathrow on time (11:45 AM, June 6) and after getting our one checked bag and having our passports stamped we found the place to redeem our Visitor Travelcard vouchers. This Travelcard would give us a ticket to the Tube (also called the Underground, London’s subway, though for them “subway” means pedestrian underpass) for seven days and all zones. My wife purchased the vouchers at a travel agency, Flight Centre, before we left on our trip. We caught the Picadilly line of the Tube that took us to Gloucester Road station in South Kensington, the station closest to our hotel. After some navigating and getting used to the cars driving on different sides of the street than in the U.S. we found our hotel, Aston’s Budget Studios that is actually part of a building comprised of studio apartments. We checked in and were given a larger studio than we planned. Our studio was on street level and despite it being reportedly larger, the bathroom was very small.
After unpacking we took to the Tube to the Hyde Park Corner station. From there we walked north along the eastern edge of Hyde park. The initial cloudy weather had cleared up and it was getting warm. The weather would remain fairly warm and sunny for the entire trip, except for the afternoon in Bath when it rained a bit. Along the east end there was this beautiful path lined with trees, part of it for bikes/rollerblades and part of it for walkers. We arrived at the northeast corner and saw the people gathered at Speakers’ Corner. Every Sunday on Speakers’ Corner people are allowed to just get up on their soapboxes (both literally and figuratively) and speak about whatever they wanted. Most of the speakers we saw seemed to be religious evangelists, though I noticed some people in one audience holding Iraqi flags.
From Hyde Park we walked towards Oxford Street taking advantage of the English “subways” or pedestrian underpasses that were very extensive. Signs kept us from getting too lost. We walked down Oxford Street to Selfridges department store. My plan was to get some breakfast food there so I could have breakfast at our apartment while in London. We found the food hall but first needed to find the ATM. In the process of searching for the ATM we saw much of the store, a rival of Harrods. All the ATM’s in Selfridges were out of order so we purchased the food with credit card and the left the store to have dinner.
After finding an ATM on a street corner we had dinner at Pret a Manger a popular healthy sandwich chain in England. They served sandwiches, salads, and baguettes: sandwiches made with small French bread loaves that seemed to be a popular fast food in England. After dinner we returned to our apartment. We found an ATM and small grocer, Harts, close to our apartment and I got some more breakfast food there.
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