November
17
Since the
internet was weird at my hotel, I couldn't do as thorough a job of researching where
I had to get for my tour in the morning. I had ridden the underground enough
the day before, though, to have a general idea of how long I needed to get to
the tour office. I asked the man working the front desk in the morning if he
knew where the tour office was and how best I should get there. I told him I was
planning on taking the underground, but "no, the bus is much better. It stops
right in front of the hotel!" he assured me.
From a carousel near the river.
He told me
to get on bus 148, show the driver where I was going on my map, and everything should
be fine. I got on the bus and discovered that they only accept pre-paid tickets.
The driver had already pulled away, so I was stuck on the bus at least to the
next stop. The bus didn't go where the guy in the hotel thought, though. The
driver, calling me "that lady," as in "that lady, where were you
going again?" let me off a few blocks from where I needed to be with maybe
two minutes to get to the tour. I kept hoping the tour bus was running late.
A public pay toilet near the London Eye.
I walked
quickly in a light drizzle to the street I needed, but could not find the place
marked on my map by the front desk man. I asked several people and it turns
out, it is almost impossible to find someone in London who is from London and
knows anything about the city. I even asked a man cleaning up trash bins,
theoretically working for the city of London, who it turns out was from Africa.
He told me to ask someone with a cigarette, which seems like very strange
advice, indeed. I roamed around and around.
A kid giving money to a busker. The busker was excellent, by the way.
I walked
up the street in one direction until it was no longer the street I needed,
passing Buckingham Palace and calling that my visit there for the trip. I
turned around, after I was already 10 minutes late, and I went into a hotel and
asked if they could call the tour office to find out if I had any hope of
catching the bus. The tour office told the man in the hotel that I had 6
minutes to get to their last pick-up location. The hotel put me in a cab. After
we're driving for a while, the cabbie asked me if I had a map he could look at.
He didn't remember the address he was taking me to and he didn't really know
the street anyway. We finally got there and he let me know…14£ later.
I'm reflected in there.
I got to the tour office and, yes, I was by
now very late - almost 40 minutes after when I was supposed to originally get
the bus. I was crying. I had to sit down for 10 minutes and calm down before I
could even explain to the man in the tour office what happened. He was able to
cancel my full-day London tour for the next day and I book a Stonehenge 1/2 day
tour, which doesn't go to Bath or anywhere else. It was discounted by 50% because
I was so miserable about it. They would be picking me up one hotel over, so I only
had myself to rely on getting me to the hotel in time.
I spent the
day walking around the city trying to do the things I would have done on the full-day
tour. I headed straight to the London Eye and while I was in line...it broke
down. They got it fixed in about 1/2 an hour and I was able to ride it.
Then I
went to the Tower of London, where they were dismantling a memorial to fallen
soldiers, where the moat around the tower had been filled with thousands of
ceramic poppies. A sign said the poppies were for sale, but I asked in a shop and
he said they sold out weeks ago - treating me like I was a little bit stupid
for not realizing this.
Is the Tower of London a popular wedding destination?
From there I went to lunch and had a veggie burger which was seemed
to have been deep fried. I walked to St. Paul's - I don't know if
you can go in, but other than the museums, I didn't go in any of these places.
Paddington visits St. Paul's
From
St. Paul's there is a walking bridge over the river to the Tate Modern.
The walking bridge has many locks on it with love inscriptions on them.
All of
the museums in England boast being free, but they have boxes inside asking for
4£. I paid it at the Tate Modern when I went in, only to discover that there
were 14£ tickets needed for most of the exhibits. I looked at the few exhibits which
were free and I really do think modern art is garbage.
It's just a piece of cloth on the ground!!!!
I walked
along the river, back to the London Eye, stopping in a shop to get Richard
Ayoade's book (Moss from the IT Crowd), and crossed over the river at
Westminster Abbey. Again, I didn't go in. I continued down the river to the
Tate (not modern) museum. It also had limited free exhibitions, but I enjoyed
the one I saw which was a history of British art, set up by decades. I didn't
give them any money, figuring they could get it from the Tate Modern where I
wish I hadn't contributed.
The sun
was nearly down, since it was nearly 5 PM, so I got on the underground and came
back to the room for a rest. I feel like I'm giving Nice a run for its money
here with walking. For dinner I popped down the road to a pub where I had a
"jacket" potato with cheese in it. I also ordered water, but never
got it. 6£ for just the potato, and that, it seems, would be the cheapest I
could eat in London, short of fast food.
Cross your
fingers that I see Stonehenge tomorrow.
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