Notes from a vacation: August 20-21

[madbaker]

bonacorsi took all the pictures, and she plans to post a selection. I may hint at a few I'd like her to post, though.
Travel to and First Day in London

Our flight to London left San Francisco Monday at 4 PM. We arrived in London on Tuesday around 11 AM, thanks to the time change. The Airbus was reasonably comfortable -- I especially liked the video-on-demand, which let me watch what I wanted (in unexpurgated format) rather than the usual appeal-to-no-one mush. The free booze in coach was also nice, although I didn't take advantage. I got somewhat dehydrated anyway.

Passport control at Heathrow took 15 minutes to walk to and twenty seconds to traverse. We took the Heathrow Express to Paddington (the Bear kiosk was closed) and, once we figured out where we were going, walked the 15 minutes to our hotel bordering Hyde Park.
There are quite a few good hotels in that area. Ours, however, was not one of them. That should have been predictable because the stay there was a British Airways special; our two nights were free. The hotel wasn't a dump, just mildly grotty with holes in the carpets and suchlike. Also, despite our reservation we were given two single beds. It wasn't worth the hassle to complain, so we freshened up (unable to figure out how to get the overhead shower going, we used the flex-unit) and headed out.

Since we had the afternoon and were somewhat jet-lagged, we forewent any museums and took the Tube to Westminster Abbey. We looked at Parliament (and the crowds waiting to get in), then walked through St. Margaret's, which is the church for the House of Commons. Nice. We paid for entrance to the Abbey and gawked for a bit. They also offered a 90-minute tour led by the verger (lay church employee) for a slight additional cost - it started in 15 minutes, so we ponied up. That was quite the deal: Verger Ben was funny and had lots of energy. We got to see areas that are closed to the public, including the shrine of St. Edward the Confessor. bonacorsi and I knelt in front of the shrine; it might have been okay to kneel on it as was done historically, but we erred on the side of caution, just as you don't touch statues. We also got to see the tombs of Henry III and Henry V. Lots of other nifty stuff, like the tomb of the Tower Princes, Elizabeth I (and Mary), the stalls for the members of the Order of the Bath... too much to write down.

We stayed for open Evensong services, since our verger tour tickets gave us priority over the masses. (Heh. I made a funny.) We sat right next to the choir in the choir stalls. For a basic Anglican 45 minute service, it was really nice and a good way to wind down.

Dinner was fish and chips at a nondescript pub that claimed to date to 1680. The draft cider was good. We made our way home, walking a bit farther than we would have liked because we got off at the wrong Tube station, and crashed hard.

What I read: Harry Turtledove, In At the Death; Patricia Bray, Sea Change

Comments

[fionnbharro.livejournal.com]

"Prior"ity over the "Masses".

Heh.

Can't wait to see pictures. Do they have color photos, yet, in England?

[fionnbharro.livejournal.com]

Damned spell-checker.

I originally wrote "Do they Have colour photos, yet"

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

The last time I was in London I went to Matins and Mass in Westminster Abbey, and got there early enough to sit in the choir, too. It was beautiful, though the kneelers are uncomfortable.

[dame-cordelia.livejournal.com]

I believe the kneelers are meant to be uncomfortable so that the choir members stay awake.