May 18, 2012 - London, England

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following journal entry was taken from a very impromptu trip to London in May 2012.  We decided to go only about six weeks prior to our departure.  Lisa's friend, April, was traveling to take a class for her job.  When her coworker who was supposed to go as well left the company and she thought she would be traveling alone, she asked Lisa if she would come with her.  I encouraged Lisa to go, expressed my jealousy, and the we decide to both go!  As it turns out, they hired a replacement for April's coworker, named Dan, and he took the course as well so ultimately April wouldn't have had to travel alone...  We had also hoped to see our Irish friend, Gemma, on this trip, who had moved from Maryland to Cambridge, England.

Wednesday (May 16) we met with April and Dan at 8.30 AM for breakfast.  They had found an inexpensive breakfast place not far from the hotel, near the Tottenham Court Road Underground Station (where Lisa and I had gotten off to go to the hotel, but which is actually not as close to the hotel as the Goodge Street Station, which I affectionately refer to as, "The Gooch.") called Garfunkel's.  It's a chain and I have seen several around London.  We had a very nice Eastern European waiter and April and Dan both had coffee while Lisa and I had tea (Twinings English Breakfast).  I splurged and had the English breakfast - a piece of bacon, a wonderful sausage, one egg, a small hash brown, grilled tomato, and grilled mushroom.  Left the mushroom, of course, but the rest was very tasty.  Lisa had toast and sausage, April bacon and eggs, and Dan porridge.  After breakfast, I asked April and Dan where the Starbuck's they mentioned was so that we could use the WiFi (AUTHOR'S NOTE: This would be our last trip overseas without an international data plan!).  Dan recalled one back up by the Goodge Street Underground Station, but unfortunately he forgot about the one just around the corner from Garfunkel's on Oxford Street!  Anyway, we walked all the way back up to the other one and I sent an email to my Mom and to Lisa's Dad to let them know we had arrived safely.  I also sent a message to Gemma, our friend in Cambridge, to coordinate meeting with her, which, sadly, was not to happen.

Wednesday morning, we went and saw the Churchill War Rooms.  Can't believe we have never done this before. What an amazing piece of history - the underground bunker near #10 and Parliament where Churchill and the British government ran the war.  Many of the rooms, such as the the main conference room and the telephone dispatch room have been left just as they were, including the date in the dispatch room still saying August 16 [1945], the day after the Japanese surrendered (V-J Day) and the last day anyone worked there.  In one of the map rooms, the original map still hangs with graffiti picture of Hitler drawn in the Atlantic Ocean.  The audio tour pointed out the scrambler phones and a device that Churchill and the others referred to as a, "klop," which was a hole-punch that made a, "klop," sound when used.  Churchill insisted that documents be hole punched and then fastened with a ring or tied as he disliked both paper clips and staples.  There were signs admonishing no whistling or other unnecessary noises as Mr. Churchill hated extraneous noises, especially whistling (I am sure he would have really been annoyed by cell phones ringing...).  He was indefatigable, working 8 AM to 3 AM workdays throughout the war.

Half-way through the tour, there is wonderful Churchill museum which exhibits the entirety of his life.  There are interactive poll questions, followed by supplemental information to see if you changed your mind. There is also a huge interactive timeline in which you can look up and read about specific dates in his life.  They have a number of Churchill effects, including one of the zipper suits he wore, the flag that draped his coffin (he lived to be 90), the revolver he carried during his daring escape from South Africa during the Boer War, and facsimiles of some of his paintings of Chartwell (his home) - Churchill painted!  I also didn't realize he had backed Edward VIII in the abdication crisis.

As fantastic as the Churchill museum is, it really is a bit much in combination with the war rooms, which themselves take a while to tour and are a lot to see.  There really is a lot of information down there and it is hard to take in all of it in a reasonable period of time.  Nonetheless, it was well worth the attempt.

By the time we finished the tour, it was nearly 2 and we were famished.  We had lunch at a pub just across from Parliament called St. Stephen's Tavern.  Nice place.  I had a Thai-style chicken green curry, which was reasonably good, and Lisa and fish and chips, which she thought was OK.  However, her Pearwood pear cider was lovely and my seasonal ale was pretty good.

Lisa and I and the London Eye

After lunch, we crossed the river and to the London Eye.  We had done this on our first trip to London nine years ago, but Lisa is rather obsessed with it 😁.  It is pretty cool.  Large capsules that hold 25 people with space to walk around rotate ever so slowly so that you hardly notice the movement around a large Ferris wheel and afford wonderful views of London.  We took some nice pictures from there.  In the visitor's center, where we bought tickets, there was free WiFi so I checked email, which included a message from Lisa's Auntie Peg (who lives in Greenwich) saying to meet here at Trafalgar Square Thursday (yesterday, but tomorrow as I was reading the message) in front of the National Gallery at 11 AM.

Palace of Westminster as viewed from London Eye

 After the London Eye, we made our way back to the hotel to meet April and Dan before going to dinner.