Day 8 - London Day 1, April 20th
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Wendell Updates From The Road
Just the highlights, here.
I'm on a $6 per hour internet connection, so I can't detail everything that's happened in the past week. Here's the highlights - landed in London just in time to participate in an evacuation of Heathrow. We flew into Kirkwall thinking that our SCUBA gear had been mislaid by BA - we were filing the missing baggage paperwork when it was disgorged by the LoganAir baggage conveyor. Touring Orkney Island within minutes of our arrival and seeing the Ring of Brodgar, a ring of standing stones of Stonehenge vintage, only we can go up and touch them. The next 3 days, we dove Scapa Flow and the WWI German wrecks. On the last day of diving we were dropping on a destroyer wreck in 24m of water in 4' seas and 40kt winds and I got so nervous/excited that I jumped in the water having forgotten to turn on my air (Hobbit was kind enough to turn it on for me after a few minutes of moderate panic.) Our last day on Orkney Island, we toured the Highland Park distillery (Northern most distillery in the world, beating out Scapa Distillery by 1/4 mile.) We toured Glenfiddich distillery the next day, and saw a BUNCH of the highland distilleries, plus toured Balvenie Castle. Visited Urquhart castle on Loch Ness, Culloden Battlefield (Scotland's
Gettysburg.)
We're in London now, dropped off our SCUBA gear at Paul's place and toured the city today. Tomorrow we continue London tour, then off to Bath, Portsmouth Sunday (Royal Navy, Royal Marines museums) Normandy, St.
Bernard Hospice, Leonberg (Leonberger dog show), Prague, Munich, Rome, Paris, plus side trips to Transylvania and Pompeii/Herculaneum.
I've got a huge wad of photos to upload, probably tomorrow when we meet with Paul Nixon (our AnimalList host in London.)
Hobbit Discovers Something New About Europe
Hobbit writes: We took the Caledonia sleeper to London. This morning, I had my first truly European experience. In the morning, the room steward knocked on the door. When we didn't answer right away, he opened the door. I was a little foggy and sat up just as he opened the door. The room steward said, “Here’s your breakfast Mum,” and handed me a box. Then, he said, “Here’s your breakfast, sir,” and handed Wendell a box. Wendell had to assure me repeatedly that the room steward would have considered me sitting up in bed naked from the waist up to be perfectly normal and not given it a second thought.
Wendell writes: I explained to Hobbit that Europeans have a more casual attitude about toplessness than Americans. Repeatedly.
Hobbit On Her First Overnight Train
Hobbit was very amused to discover that the upper bunk was quite roomy - one of the benefits of being slightly over five feet tall.
Deathmarch To Paul's House
Hobbit writes: We had to walk a zillion miles with our SCUBA gear, which is really heavy. I was about to die and had a little bit of a meltdown once we got to Paul’s place where we are leaving the gear. The five hour nap on the train last night didn’t help.
The London Original bus tour is a bit pricey, but you can get on and off. It goes to all the touristy stuff and had a nice narration for the tour. Also you’d pay twice as much to take the regular buses anyhow.
Our room is pretty grotty. It is a “standard.” Later in the evening Wendell and I had a conversation.
W:” If we switch to an en suite room, it would take care of the shower problem.”
H: “When you asked me if I wanted an en suite, did you really want me to say yes?”
W: “Well, no. I just hoped that....”
H: “The room wouldn’t be so standard.”
W: “Yeah.”
I saw Fleet Street today. It’s been around since about the 1600s. No Demon Barber though.
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