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Recently, my lovely wife Taffy and I took a vacation to the
United Kingdom.
Hi, John Jeffery Dick here. Some of you know me as booger, others call me Jeff or John. Whatever you call me, welcome to this little journal of our vacation to London (and outlying areas). When I speak of "our", I of course mean me and my beautiful wife, Taffy. Say 'Hi', Taffy. Hi Taffy. As you can see, my writing will be in blue, and Taffy's will be in Red. We booked a hotel close to the Victoria tube stop in order to make transit from Heathrow airport to the hotel as painless as possible. Upon landing in London on Christmas day, we discovered that the tube (otherwise known as the underground - 'subway' to Americans) was closed for the holiday. We were screwed. There were a few taxi cabs running, but the line to wait for one went around the block and they were charging double fare for having to work on Christmas. We did find one train that was running, the Heathrow Express. It dropped us off at Paddington station and we had to walk about 5 miles to our hotel. Allow me to elaborate / whine here: I woke up on Christmas Eve and boarded the plane, a coach class seat on a Boeing 747, at 12 noon. This was an international non-stop flight at a major airport during an "Orange Alert", which massively complicated the flight. After 11.5 hours of tight seating and going through 8 time zones, I landed in London late Christmas day and was severely jet lagged. The walk from Paddington Station to the hotel was performed by one very out of shape couple (ie Jeff and myself) dragging all our luggage. Inevitably, this was going to be a challenging day for me. We finally made it to our hotel, the Blair Victoria. Checked in to room number 29, and collapsed for a brief respite. When we woke up we found ourselves in yet another dilemma, the restaurants were also closed for the holidays. We were getting reeeeally hungry. We meandered around in a ravenous, jet-lagged stupor until we happened upon a delicious little place called the 'Scottish Steak House'. I must say, it was a wonderful Christmas dinner... especially considering we were looking at the very real possibility of having to starve. There were a few problems, sure. All in all, though, I'd say it was a magnificent day. All the little obstacles we faced made it that much more fulfilling when we went to bed with full bellies and heads full of excitement. There was a sense of accomplishment, we made it. It was a strange yet miserable day for me. Don't like flying in planes. One of the first things I heard upon arriving in London was "the tube is closed, so you must take the lift and wait in a queue for the rail." What? For all you Americans, the translation is "The subway is closed, so take the elevator and wait in a line for the train." Soon after arrival at the restaurant, it occurred that I shouldn't assume *anything* worked the same here as in America. It got me paranoid at first, but ended up being pretty fun and educational.
We didn't take very many pictures on that first day. On the left is a scan of some travel stubs, and on the right is Taffy standing outside the Blair Victoria hotel.
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