wolfsbride (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wolfsbride) wrote2003-08-04 11:55 pm
wolfsbride) wrote2003-08-04 11:55 pm
Day Two - Harrods, Victoria & Albert Museum & Hyde Park
Before I start, a few things...
1. My erstwhile travelling companion reminded me that the name of the hotel is in fact Piccolino! I never did get it right while I was there, so I'm not surprised I screwed it up one final time :)
2. In addition to wondering about the fuzzy dice, I also wondered whether planes had windshield wipers. And now I'm picturing the plane stopping for refueling and the pilot saying "check the oil, please."
My brain is weird. Anyway... On to Day Two!
****
You'll notice that I skipped from the second to the fourth. I went forward in time while I was flying. Now I'm reminded of all the times the Star Trek guys slingshot around the sun :)
Didn't actually get back to sleep after I woke up at 3am. Waited for Viccy to wake up. Babbled a bit about the nice beds and how we slept. Then we showered. Not at the same time of course :)
The shower is really small. Really really really small. I guess large people would go to another hotel. Also, the hose only works if its up high, so that's a bit fussy.
The toilet doesn't flush properly. Viccy was all YIKES! But I took a look at in the tank and realized what the problem was. I was able to figure out a way to make it flush. Huston, we have flushing! Yay.
Wore the outfit I arrived in since we're going to Harrods today. Must look nice.
At about 9am we went down for breakfast. Breakfast was fabulous! They had mini croissants and some pastry thingies that were filled with ham and cheese. Those were heavenly. So light and flaky! Was very impressed.
The travel ticket isn't good until 9:30am so we have a leisurely breakfast. The hotel guy chats a bit. He's so nice and I love the accent. He asks where we're going and says its a lovely day for Hyde Park.
We leave our hotel and walk down the street. There is a little shoppe where we buy some bottled water. We pass an internet cafe. Yay! Will be able to send 'have not died' mail.
We continue pass there and come to the first traffic light. Wow! The traffic is bad. I thought the traffic in my city was bad but this is wow...
They have instructions on the street in front of the traffic light telling you which way to look before you step off the curb so you don't get run over. We make it to Paddington station.
They have a little shop. Paddington bears at Paddington station. How something or the other. -_- We go down the stairs and down the stairs and down the escalator and did I mention down the stairs? Finally we're at the platform.
We stop a moment to figure out which way we need to go and then get on the tube that comes. ACK! I'd forgotten what the tube was like. Wasn't as bad as it could have have been though. Still early in the morning.
We have to switch tubes since the Circle Line doesn't go all the way to Knightsbridge which is where Harrods is. We hop on the Piccadilly Line and when we get to our stop we go up the stairs and up the stairs and up some more stairs and up the escalator which is really steep and up more stairs. Then we're out on Brompton Street.
We head to Harrods. Whoa. This place is HUGE! There are at least nine floors to this place and each floor is like the length and width of a football field. Or at least it seems like it :)
Unfortunately I can't really appreciate it since the shoes I'm wearing have turned out to be terrible for walking. That's the last time I listen to anyone about shoes. They have no support. My feet are killing me.
So I'm kinda crabby. I hate window shopping at the best of times and with my feet aching like they are, I'm really miserable.
I urge Viccy to get to where she wants to go so we can get to someplace where I can sit down. I hobble to the Toy Kingdom after her. All I want to buy from Harrods is a bag.
We get to the toy department and I see two Quidditch frogs. I fall in love with them. But no! Am only getting the bag!
For those of you wondering what the hell are Quidditch frogs, it comes from Resonant's The Familiar and the picture that was inspired by it, The Familiar 2.
Quidditch was one of the things that the frog in the story said. For some reason that struck me as incredibly hilarious. I love the frog in the story and the two frogs in Harrods just reminded me of him.
We wander around the toy section for a bit. Surprisingly, we see only two Harrys and two Ron dolls. Viccy asks one of the clerks if they have anymore Potter junk, then she says um.. merchandise. The clerk says if they do, it'll be over there and he points. Then as we're walking away, he says and you're right, it is junk. That was funny since I'd have thought London would be like all hail Harry Potter!
We wandered through the book sections. I bought a book about Egypt so there goes my I'm only buying the bag! stance. But I couldn't resist. It was all about the mythology and I love that stuff. Viccy bought a HP picture book, some cards and a little stuffed tiger.
We went down to the bag department and I got my Harrods bag. And since I had already broken my nothing but the bag thing, I went back and got the two Quidditch frogs. I am insaney.
Oh... A couple of things about Harrods. We were told that you had to dress nicely otherwise they wouldn't let you in hence the wearing of my travel outfit. But when we got there, there were people walking around in SHORTS AND TEE SHIRTS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!
*cries out loud* Hmph. Could have dressed for comfort. Stupid people with wrong information.
The other thing was the prices. Had heard that Harrods was mega expensive. Not so. It's not anymore expensive than any other high end department store. My bag cost 17 pounds. Which is like 35 to 40 dollars CND.
Another Harrods myth debunked. I feel like Mulder.
*mind wanders at the thought of feeling Mulder* Err... *cough* Let's continue, shall we?
My feet were really killing me by now so we went to eat lunch. The place we ate at was called Mo's Dinner. There was a big motorcycle out front.
We sat and both had hamburger and fries. Yeh, I know. We come all the way to London and then have the ultimate North American food.
It was delicious though. I ordered a coke and it came in a GLASS BOTTLE. I was all squee! since it was a GREEN glass bottle and they stopped making those a long time ago.
I asked if I could keep it and the waitress said sure. She even washed it out and wrapped it in a nice fancy bag. YAY!
We sat for awhile and Viccy wrote in her journal while I wrote in mine. We took the tube and then walked to the bus stop and took a bus to the Victoria & Albert Museum.
The V&A Museum is incredible but kinda weird too because it's like all this stuff that was basically stolen from other cultures. Will have to look it up when we get back to the internet. We only managed to walk through the first floor as I was in excuriating pain. We saw a cute little snake plate.
We hobbled... Well, I hobbled... back to the station and we took a tube back to Paddington station. Gah! It was awful. It was crwoded and hot and it stopped and the lights went out and I thought, if we get stuck here people will be passing out all over.
Luckily, we got moving again and made it back to our hotel in one piece. We didn't get to Hyde Park though. Wah! I felt really bad about that but my feet were in no shape to go any further.
We didn't go out for dinner. Viccy walked all the way to Woolworth's and she was exhausted from that and I was still wiped out from our sightseeing.
And the HEAT!!! London is in the middle of a heat wave apparently. Oh yay! I left a heatwave in BC to come experience a foreign heat wave. My joy knows no bounds -_-
Went to bed around 12am. Woke up at 4:15am. Gah! Will have to buy a large book to read in the morning hours.
It's now 7am. I'm looking forward to breakfast :D
1. My erstwhile travelling companion reminded me that the name of the hotel is in fact Piccolino! I never did get it right while I was there, so I'm not surprised I screwed it up one final time :)
2. In addition to wondering about the fuzzy dice, I also wondered whether planes had windshield wipers. And now I'm picturing the plane stopping for refueling and the pilot saying "check the oil, please."
My brain is weird. Anyway... On to Day Two!
****
You'll notice that I skipped from the second to the fourth. I went forward in time while I was flying. Now I'm reminded of all the times the Star Trek guys slingshot around the sun :)
Didn't actually get back to sleep after I woke up at 3am. Waited for Viccy to wake up. Babbled a bit about the nice beds and how we slept. Then we showered. Not at the same time of course :)
The shower is really small. Really really really small. I guess large people would go to another hotel. Also, the hose only works if its up high, so that's a bit fussy.
The toilet doesn't flush properly. Viccy was all YIKES! But I took a look at in the tank and realized what the problem was. I was able to figure out a way to make it flush. Huston, we have flushing! Yay.
Wore the outfit I arrived in since we're going to Harrods today. Must look nice.
At about 9am we went down for breakfast. Breakfast was fabulous! They had mini croissants and some pastry thingies that were filled with ham and cheese. Those were heavenly. So light and flaky! Was very impressed.
The travel ticket isn't good until 9:30am so we have a leisurely breakfast. The hotel guy chats a bit. He's so nice and I love the accent. He asks where we're going and says its a lovely day for Hyde Park.
We leave our hotel and walk down the street. There is a little shoppe where we buy some bottled water. We pass an internet cafe. Yay! Will be able to send 'have not died' mail.
We continue pass there and come to the first traffic light. Wow! The traffic is bad. I thought the traffic in my city was bad but this is wow...
They have instructions on the street in front of the traffic light telling you which way to look before you step off the curb so you don't get run over. We make it to Paddington station.
They have a little shop. Paddington bears at Paddington station. How something or the other. -_- We go down the stairs and down the stairs and down the escalator and did I mention down the stairs? Finally we're at the platform.
We stop a moment to figure out which way we need to go and then get on the tube that comes. ACK! I'd forgotten what the tube was like. Wasn't as bad as it could have have been though. Still early in the morning.
We have to switch tubes since the Circle Line doesn't go all the way to Knightsbridge which is where Harrods is. We hop on the Piccadilly Line and when we get to our stop we go up the stairs and up the stairs and up some more stairs and up the escalator which is really steep and up more stairs. Then we're out on Brompton Street.
We head to Harrods. Whoa. This place is HUGE! There are at least nine floors to this place and each floor is like the length and width of a football field. Or at least it seems like it :)
Unfortunately I can't really appreciate it since the shoes I'm wearing have turned out to be terrible for walking. That's the last time I listen to anyone about shoes. They have no support. My feet are killing me.
So I'm kinda crabby. I hate window shopping at the best of times and with my feet aching like they are, I'm really miserable.
I urge Viccy to get to where she wants to go so we can get to someplace where I can sit down. I hobble to the Toy Kingdom after her. All I want to buy from Harrods is a bag.
We get to the toy department and I see two Quidditch frogs. I fall in love with them. But no! Am only getting the bag!
For those of you wondering what the hell are Quidditch frogs, it comes from Resonant's The Familiar and the picture that was inspired by it, The Familiar 2.
Quidditch was one of the things that the frog in the story said. For some reason that struck me as incredibly hilarious. I love the frog in the story and the two frogs in Harrods just reminded me of him.
We wander around the toy section for a bit. Surprisingly, we see only two Harrys and two Ron dolls. Viccy asks one of the clerks if they have anymore Potter junk, then she says um.. merchandise. The clerk says if they do, it'll be over there and he points. Then as we're walking away, he says and you're right, it is junk. That was funny since I'd have thought London would be like all hail Harry Potter!
We wandered through the book sections. I bought a book about Egypt so there goes my I'm only buying the bag! stance. But I couldn't resist. It was all about the mythology and I love that stuff. Viccy bought a HP picture book, some cards and a little stuffed tiger.
We went down to the bag department and I got my Harrods bag. And since I had already broken my nothing but the bag thing, I went back and got the two Quidditch frogs. I am insaney.
Oh... A couple of things about Harrods. We were told that you had to dress nicely otherwise they wouldn't let you in hence the wearing of my travel outfit. But when we got there, there were people walking around in SHORTS AND TEE SHIRTS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!
*cries out loud* Hmph. Could have dressed for comfort. Stupid people with wrong information.
The other thing was the prices. Had heard that Harrods was mega expensive. Not so. It's not anymore expensive than any other high end department store. My bag cost 17 pounds. Which is like 35 to 40 dollars CND.
Another Harrods myth debunked. I feel like Mulder.
*mind wanders at the thought of feeling Mulder* Err... *cough* Let's continue, shall we?
My feet were really killing me by now so we went to eat lunch. The place we ate at was called Mo's Dinner. There was a big motorcycle out front.
We sat and both had hamburger and fries. Yeh, I know. We come all the way to London and then have the ultimate North American food.
It was delicious though. I ordered a coke and it came in a GLASS BOTTLE. I was all squee! since it was a GREEN glass bottle and they stopped making those a long time ago.
I asked if I could keep it and the waitress said sure. She even washed it out and wrapped it in a nice fancy bag. YAY!
We sat for awhile and Viccy wrote in her journal while I wrote in mine. We took the tube and then walked to the bus stop and took a bus to the Victoria & Albert Museum.
The V&A Museum is incredible but kinda weird too because it's like all this stuff that was basically stolen from other cultures. Will have to look it up when we get back to the internet. We only managed to walk through the first floor as I was in excuriating pain. We saw a cute little snake plate.
We hobbled... Well, I hobbled... back to the station and we took a tube back to Paddington station. Gah! It was awful. It was crwoded and hot and it stopped and the lights went out and I thought, if we get stuck here people will be passing out all over.
Luckily, we got moving again and made it back to our hotel in one piece. We didn't get to Hyde Park though. Wah! I felt really bad about that but my feet were in no shape to go any further.
We didn't go out for dinner. Viccy walked all the way to Woolworth's and she was exhausted from that and I was still wiped out from our sightseeing.
And the HEAT!!! London is in the middle of a heat wave apparently. Oh yay! I left a heatwave in BC to come experience a foreign heat wave. My joy knows no bounds -_-
Went to bed around 12am. Woke up at 4:15am. Gah! Will have to buy a large book to read in the morning hours.
It's now 7am. I'm looking forward to breakfast :D