Leaving London to the Last

We tried to close out Paris with a visit to Pére Lachaise Cemetery before heading to the train station to ride through the Chunnel, but rain foiled our attempts.  We saw a bit, but the two tiny umbrellas proved inadequate to the task of protecting four adult sized people from the heavy downpour.  Also, I think Newton missed a physical constant of the universe.  In addition to the equal and opposite reaction, in both validity and importance, is the fact that a disparity of 6 inches between two people sharing the same umbrella results in both becoming wet.  May need a little research and some mathematical formulas,  but I think I am on to something.  Just post my Nobel prize in the comments.

The final resting place of Abelard and Heloise, two giants of the 11th and 12th centuries.

The next on our list of adventures was riding the Eurostar from Paris to London.  Part of the thrill of this was the fact that it is a high speed rail link, something that I don't believe exists in North America.  The seats were comfy, food was available, but I had to sit aisle side.  My propensity for queasiness made me opt for less view.  The motion was something though.  You could feel the speed building and building.  My husband shot this out the window and it gives you a little idea of the speed of the train.



 We arrived in London to the chaos of the British Rail system.  Not to say it was bad, there just was soo much of it.  Trains, subways, and more trains.  Wow.  Also, everything seems to be under construction in preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games.  I have only one comment, People going to and from airports and train stations have LUGGAGE!!!  You might want to think about those two steps up and 10 step down configurations that seem to predominate at the train stations.  In the "Tube", there are tons of lifts and super long escalators, but when you get to the train stations, they disappear.  Like Magic.

In London we stayed at the Londontown Hotel.  What can I say.  It was literally around a corner to Earl's Court Tube Station, which was fabulous.  It was neat in that it was a converted Victorian home.  It was very clean, but lightly furnished with three beds basically filling the room.  It had no air conditioning, which should not have been a problem since most days the temps barely hit 20 degrees Celsius, but there was no airflow and there was heat on in parts of the hotel.  If you had stayed here in anything warmer than 20, you would expire.  Even a ceiling fan would have helped tremendously.

We went to find dinner the first night and happened across the Princess Victoria.  Cannot say enough about this little restaurant.  The people were friendly, the food great and the prices reasonable.  So good in fact we went back a second night.  Mushy peas, yum!

In London we saw Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guards, The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey (much more weeping, even in line waiting, people must have thought I was looney, but Margaret Beaufort is lying there), the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kensington Palace, Princess Anne coming out of a helicopter, Greenwich, the Maritime Museum, Trafalgar Square, a variety of circuses, the Thames, the Tower Bridge, Bond Street, Carnaby Street, on and on.  All of it very cool.

But by far the coolest, was the Tardis just outside Earl's Court station.  I swear it was not there the day we arrived and I am pretty sure it wasn't there the next day.

My absolute favourite thing in London was something called The Monument which commemorates the fire of 1666.  Love the photo on the linked site.  If that is all you knew of "The Monument" you would never believe you are standing in front of it when you in fact are.  It reminds me of Calgary's tower a little.  Somehow this monument got surrounded by modern buildings and doesn't really have that much space around it.  Kind of ironic.

Now one of my husband's prestated goals in London was seeing the pub which was used in Shaun of the Dead to be the Winchester Pub.  We found it ahead of time and one day he and my older daughter went looking for it while my younger daughter, who was not feeling well, and I headed back to our room.  Well it's not a pub of any sort anymore, but find it they did, sans Zombies.

And that brings me to the end of our trip and transitions nicely into the topic of my next post, which will be my Zombie book, well at least the beginning of it.