Europe 2004 Day 2

So we pick up from yesterday on the plane somewhere over the North Atlantic. I did get a few winks of sleep, not as much as I would have liked. I wasn't really sleepy enough to zonk out, I suppose. So I read a book and watched the little map update itself with our current position. Soon the sky began to lighten outside and we made our approach into Gatwick.

As near as I can figure that airport is a series of halls with little passages connecting them with no apparent organization like you would find in most airports. The route was well signed, but very circuitous. I made my way to the train hall, got on the train, and in short order found myself at London Victoria station. I took a few pounds out of an ATM, and headed for the Tube station. Luckily, Victoria is on the District and Circle Lines, as is Tower Hill, which is the station for Brent's flat. So it was a pretty straightforward (but awesome!) trip on a District Line train.

At Tower Hill, I found Brent's Flat without too much difficulty and managed to get in and settled and refreshed a bit. After a while, I took Brent's advice and went out for a walk to St. Katherine's Dock. It was neat, but there wasn't a lot going on there, and it was cold and breezy along the river, so I headed into the tube again for a trip to Oxford Street, which Brent had also recommended.

Oxford Street must be the big shopping street in London. It was pretty cool, although I wasn't really in the market for anything, it was cool to see the different stores, and how the street worked, and people-watch. Also, there are more buses than I've ever seen in my life that run up and down this street. It is practically bumper-to-bumper red double decker buses. I walked up and down a fair ways, walked down a few smaller side streets, had a light lunch at a sandwich place, and made my way down Charing Cross Street to Trafalgar Square, which certainly is grand.

I then headed down to Embankment, as by this time I was getting quite tired and Didn't want to walk a ton more. I hopped on another District Line train and made my way back to Brent's Flat. After spending some time on updating this site, I took a short nap at about 5:30. By this time I had been mostly awake for 24 hours. I got a few winks in before Brent arrived and it wasn't too much longer after that that Trevor showed up.

We made our way on the tube back to Embankment, where we walked up to the Leicester Square area. We went to a few nightspots (not really my thing, but whatever) and caught the last train of the night back to Brent's place.

Some general observations so far:

• The Thames is not a large as I had envisioned.
• Yeah, they drive on the left side of the road. But you don't realize how much we actually do on the right side until you go somewhere where they do it the other way around- escalators, trains, even walking up the stairs. Must keep alert.
• The Thames aside, this place is freakin' huge.
• Yet it is still manageable for a pedestrian/tube rider to get around without too much difficulty.

January 16, 2004 11:59 PM

Comments (2)

01/31: Bill said:

One thing I did forget to mention (Thanks Trevor), there was an amusing incident with a public street urinal on the way back to the tube at night. As I was using the facility, Brent & Trevor cajoled some poor British lass into coming by, patting me on the back and saying "Hi, Bill!" It was amusing.

01/31: Trevor said:

Really, it took very little convincing. She must have thought you looked hot from behind.