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Back to London , 2004

On 16 November, Gordon's mom Terry and his niece and nephew, Jessica and Eric arrived in Frankfurt for a three week visit. The kids and I arrived at the Frankfurt International airport in the early a.m. to pick them up and after initially going to the wrong terminal, we found them and loaded everyone up in the car.

I had planned a (surprise) trip for us the very next day. Gordon was in Hohenfels on a field training exercise so he would not be coming with us. Instead of driving back to our house in Grünsfeld, we drove about 20 minutes to my friend Missy's house in Wiesbaden . Missy and her family were supposed to be on vacation in Italy and she was allowing us to crash at their house. Unfortunately, we got our days mixed up and when we arrived from the airport they were still there. They were preparing to leave that afternoon however, so we just tried to stay out of their way as they packed.

Later that afternoon we left the house and headed to the PX to buy a travel transformer for the trip. We had no problem finding the PX but got lost on the way back. We ended up driving around for about 30 minutes in the dark, not knowing exactly which direction to go in, before finally finding our way back to Missy's house.

We fixed supper, packed our bags for the 3 day trip and went to bed early. We had an early morning flight on Ryanair the next morning and had to drive over an hour to the Frankfurt Hahn airport.

A little before 4 a.m. we left for the airport, and promptly got lost. We had printed several different versions of directions; however they all hinged on finding a particular road- which we could not find. We ended up driving around and around, asking four pedestrians, two gas station attendants and a taxi driver before we located the correct road. Apparently, no one had ever heard of this road (which incidentally was a major road, not some side street). In any case, it was interesting to discover how many people are out and about at 4 a.m.

Of course after driving aimlessly for 45 minutes- we thought we were going to be late. We had to check in for our flight about an hour before it left, and not knowing exactly where the airport was or how long it would take to get there, we were quite afraid that we would miss our flight.

Luckily we found the airport without any more problems and after driving fairly quickly we arrived at 5:20 a.m. We had packed all of our stuff into 4 backpacks so we did not have any bags to check. Our flight took off on time. We were on our way to London !

We arrived at 6:40 a.m. , an hour behind continental Europe . We went through customs and hopped onto the Stanstead Express regional train to London . We came out at Liverpool station and got some baguette breakfast sandwiches from a place called Upper Crust.

For those of you who have never traveled to a city where there is a large public (underground) transportation system such as New York , you may be interested to know exactly what it is like. Many stations except perhaps the smaller ones have all sorts of restaurants and stores. Fast food places, coffee shops, bakeries, newsstands, grocery stores, concessionaires, souvenir shops, gift shops and sometimes even clothing or lingerie stores. Anything you may need to pick up on your way to and from work. London is especially prolific in these types of stores.

After eating, we went to the ticket window to buy tube (subway) tickets and found that we could buy a discounted family ticket, but we could not use it until 9:30 a.m. We bought the tickets and went up onto the street thinking we would just walk around and drop down into another tube stop when we came to one. We did not have a street map however, and so had no idea where the next tube stop would be. After walking in a big circle for a couple of blocks we just went back down into the Liverpool station since it was almost 9:30 and took the train to our stop- Earl's Court.

So this brings me to accommodations. London is not a cheap city; in fact none of the UK is cheap. The last time we went to England in 2002, the exchange rate was pretty steep. Now it is even worse- about 1 pound Sterling to $1.80 USD. Almost double price.

In my extensive search of hotels in London , I knew that I would end up paying quite a bit for the hotel because of the poor exchange rate, because we would need two rooms, and well, because London is not cheap. I managed to find a hotel, whose name I do not care to mention, however I will do so solely with the intent to warn you away should you ever find yourself poised to visit London . It was called the Windsor House Hotel. And the old adage “you get what you pay for” certainly holds true.

This hotel was an amazingly cheap for London - 79 pounds per night including, (according to the website),”a BIG breakfast.” Now I say “room” instead of “rooms” because they told me that they had a large family room that would accommodate all seven of us.

As soon as we walked into the “hotel” the kids wrinkled their noses at the smell. It smelled kind of like Chinese food and feet. In the entry hung a sign which read “No noise, especially before or after 10 and please do not sit on the steps because the neighbors complain”. Hmmm.

Just past the entry (which was a short, narrow hallway) sat an Indian man in front of a door, with a tiny, desk sized table in front of him. He informed us that our room was not yet ready, but we could leave our bags in the hallway and retrieve them later that night when we returned. I did not like this idea but figured we needed to look at the room before we decided where to put the bags. We asked if we could look at the room.

He moved his chair away from the door that he was sitting in front of and unlocked the door. Apparently that was our room. At first glance the room looked ok, though very shabby. It was still messy from the previous occupants, but otherwise it appeared clean. There were 6 single beds arranged around the room. The bathroom had beige and brown linoleum that looked like it had been installed when linoleum was invented. There was an old stained and chipped tub with a drippy tap and a plug connected to a chain. No shower. I asked the man about the “new” shower that was advertised on the website. He said that “our” room did not have one, but he had another smaller family room with a shower that he could show us. We walked back toward the entrance, (actually we turned around and shuffled over to it) and he showed us the other room.

The second room looked similar to the first one, though much smaller and containing only five beds. The bathroom however, was so laughable that I made Terry come and look at it. It was a pink, mobile home style one-piece molded bathroom cubicle. It was only about 22 inches wide. It was so tiny, that your knees touched the door when you sat on the toilet-- if you were lucky enough not to fly off the broken toilet seat into the shower when you sat down. When seated, you could touch the walls on either side. We would later discover that the floor flooded when one showered, and the towels smelled once they got wet. Terry outright refused to use the nasty towels and I dried myself off with my flannel pajamas! We did not know any of this when we first checked in however, so we dropped our bags in the second room, took the key and headed out to the tube.

We took the tube all the way to Richmond , and there had to take a regional train to go to Windsor , England to see Windsor castle which is the primary residence of Queen Elizabeth II.

We arrived at the Richmond station with about 5 minutes before the next train left, however the man at the ticket window insisted that Windsor castle was closed that day. He was reluctant to sell us train tickets even after I insisted that I had e-mailed the Windsor castle ticket office and knew that they were open. Well, after finally being sold the tickets by the very slow trainee that the argumentative man was assisting, we had essentially missed our train. The next one was supposed to leave in 30 minutes however- as trains are apt to do, it was over 30 minutes late.

We arrived shortly in Windsor and saw the castle immediately upon leaving the station. It was huge! We rushed up a hill to the visitor's entrance. Benjamin, who was busy watching workers hanging French and English flags on the lamp posts across the street did not watch where he was walking and plowed smack into a lamp post on our side of the street with his head. OUCH! Poor Ben! He had a HUGE lump on his head!

We went into Windsor castle and learned, as I already knew, that part of the castle, the State Apartments, were closed due to a state visit by someone from France- hence the French flags. This meant we got in for half price.

We walked around the castle grounds a bit and went inside to see Queen Mary's dollhouse. Years ago (Grandma) Terry sent a videotape about the dollhouse to Emily. It was neat that they were actually able to see it together now. Next we saw an exhibition of photographs from Queen Alexandra, who was the present Queen's late grandmother. In the exhibit were some samples of Leonardo da Vinci's famous notebooks- written backwards of course. Emily had just studied about da Vinci and it was neat to see first hand examples of his notebooks. The real McCoy is in the British Library and we did not make it there during this trip.

Next we went into King George's chapel and saw, among other things, the tombs of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour (wife number 3 who died after childbirth not execution), King Edward IV, and Charles I (including his head). We also saw Edward III's battle sword which measured 6 feet 8 inches long.

In this section of the castle we saw a castle gate guard and we took several photos of him and standing with him.

It was not very late by this time, only around 3:30 , but we were hungry so we left the castle to find someplace to eat. We found a nice looking place down the street that offered fish and chips and peas (plain or mashed- an English specialty I am told). We treated ourselves to fried fish, chips (fries) and bread and butter. The kids got some big mugs of hot cocoa with whipped cream and then some HUGE bowls of ice cream as part of their “kid” meals.

With full stomachs we walked around a little more looking at many of the shops and then headed back toward the train station. It was getting dark and we were all pretty tired. The entire castle was immense and awesome to see, even though we were only allowed to see a very small portion of it. It was a nice excursion for our first day!

When we got back to the hotel, Jessica, Emily and I went across the street to a corner grocery called Mark and Spencer's to get some bottled water. We were amazed at the store! They had fresh muffins, scones, fresh squeezed juices, fruit and a huge variety of sandwiches with imaginative and unusual fillings. We were so impressed with the store we decided to come back to it the next day to buy sandwiches for lunch. We brought some flavored bottled water, Clementine oranges and chocolate cookies back to the room for a treat before we all crashed into bed.

This is when the reality of our room set in. We only had 5 beds so we pushed three of them together. By this point we had discovered that not only was there no clock or telephone, there was also no TV! This was most upsetting as any chance to view TV in our native language was considered a treat.

The next morning we found that the night had passed somewhat restfully. Either the beds were more comfortable than they looked or we were all really tired. I suspect it was the latter! Taking a shower was quite an experience. I soon learned about the flooding floor and how tricky it is to shower in such a tiny, tiny space. We were all pretty hungry at this point so we got dressed quickly and headed down to breakfast.

We needn't have rushed. The breakfast room was next to the laundry room and the kitchen and it consisted of four tables squished into a pretty small area. On a counter were plates with paper napkins and silverware on them. Plopped next to that was an open box of corn flakes. On each table was a small carafe of coffee, a small pot of hot tea, a small pitcher of milk, bowls of butter and jam and a plate of cold toast.

All the tables were partially full so I divided the reluctant children and placed them at different tables. Most of the kids started by eating some corn flakes, and toast-though it was so stale you could not even cut it with a knife. Eventually a frazzled looking “cook boy” brought in soft boiled eggs- one per person. Later Ben asked for another egg and the boy appeared irritated at the request. I think we were only allowed one egg apiece.

I took all the kids upstairs to brush teeth and get coats on and Grandma Terry stayed with Anabelle while she finished her toast. After about 10 minutes the older kids went back downstairs to find her and came back saying the breakfast room door was locked. Where were Grandma Terry and Anabelle? A few minutes later Grandma Terry and Anabelle returned and said that the staff had locked the breakfast room door at 8:30 (when breakfast ended), to prevent anyone else from coming in and demanding a meal. Like that flimsy door would have really kept out anyone who was bound and determined to get their boiled egg!

We left the hotel and headed first thing to Mark and Spencer's. We loaded up on sandwiches and bottles of the most delicious fresh squeezed juice I have ever tasted and headed for the tube.

Our first stop was the British Museum to see the Rosetta stone, South American and Egyptian exhibits. I am not sure what Ben found more fascinating- the Rosetta stone, the ancient Aztec ceremonial stone daggers (used to cut the hearts out of live human sacrifices) or the hieroglyphics and mummies. I know the other kids thought the mummies were really cool- especially the mummies of the cats and crocodiles! And lest you think my son a bloodthirsty heathen… we have been studying these areas of history the last two years; the Aztecs, Incans and Mayans most recently before our visit to London . It was all fresh in his mind. It really is wonderful being here in Europe- its like one huge classroom!

After the British Museum we went to St. Paul 's Cathedral. Built by Sir Christopher Wren, it is where Prince Charles married Diana Spencer. The outside was under renovation and once we got inside we found the credit card machine was broken and we needed cash, (of which I was out of), to buy entrance tickets. We just craned our necks around the corners to try and get a peek before heading on our way.

Our next stop was the Tower of London , begun by William the Conqueror in 1078. This ended up being a really cool place to go. We started off on a short tour with one of the Beefeaters, but it was raining too steadily so we ditched the tour and went ahead on our own. The kids loved climbing through the towers, up and down stairs and over parapets that overlooked the Thames and London Bridge . In one tower, there were a couple of costumed actors- and man and a woman. She was helping him don armor while he explained the use and purpose of each piece. Afterwards the kids were allowed to pick up his very heavy helmet and sword and the boys tried on his chain mail gauntlets.

Next we saw the Crown Jewels. First we saw an exhibit on the history of the huge diamonds and other jewels, and the crowns-- who wore what and what was made for whom. Then we entered a large room with huge vaulted doors. The walls were lined with cases of all sorts of state treasures- from gold punch bowls the size of bass drums to scepters to cutlery. Then we found ourselves on one of two moving sidewalks that moved us slowly but steadily past a center case containing the crown jewels. No photos allowed in here folks! There wasn't any crowd so we all hopped off the sidewalk and circled back around for another look!

It was getting dark and there was still so much to see. We headed into the White Tower where Henry VIII married his 2 nd wife Anne Boleyn. Anne was beheaded exactly three years later on the Tower green for having a daughter instead of a son- a daughter who later became Elizabeth I! Anyway, the tower is an armory now and we saw lots of swords, crossbows, stacks of arrows, lances, pikes, etc, etc. We also saw lots of armor-- including the armor of Henry VIII, from both his younger and older (meaning larger) days.

The Tower was closing so we sprinted over to the former Garden Tower which is now known as the Bloody Tower . The Bloody Tower in name only! I think the kids were a little disappointed that there was no actual blood anywhere. The Bloody Tower was used to hold Sir Walter Raleigh in captivity for over a decade and was also the site of the mysterious disappearance of the two young sons (and heirs) of Edward IV. Many believed that their uncle Richard had them murdered (which is how the tower got its name).

Though we had not seen all there was to see, we left the Tower of London and headed toward the Globe Theater to meet my cousin Scott for dinner. We walked for quite a while in the rain before we reconnected with him and decided to meet him at London Bridge , under which we were currently taking shelter. We met him in a media store and headed to a pizza place where we sat for a few hours and dried out. Terry and I had a lovely chat with Katherine, Scott's girlfriend, though the kids kept Scott occupied for most of the meal! After dinner Scott and Katherine took us to the tube station and we headed back to the hotel.

Whew! Day 3. We did not even bother with the hotel's “breakfast” this day. We packed up and moved out. Our day began again at Mark and Spencer's before walking quickly in the chill to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaur exhibit. We got there about 30 minutes prior to them opening so we sat outside in a garden and ate muffins, yogurt and juice for breakfast.

The exhibit was really neat and took us up on stairs and scaffolding to head level of the skeletons. We could see how tall they were from the top down! We dashed into the mammal exhibit and then left for Buckingham Palace .

We crossed over through James Park and the Princess Diana Memorial walkway eating sandwiches when we heard the music of the changing of the guard. It was 11:30 a.m. We had missed them going into the palace, so I figured if we hurried we would catch them on the way out. This time I knew where not to stand in order to see the procession and we had a grand view of the old guard marching out. We climbed around a bit on the immense statue of Queen Victoria that stands in front of Buckingham Palace and were getting set to head off when we saw a small motorcade approaching the Palace. It swung around and drove up the back. The girls swear they saw a gray haired lady in the back—mayhap it was the Queen?

We had a plane to catch that night so we scampered around London , the kids trading off backpacks, trying to get in the last bit of sightseeing.

Our next stop was Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey. We paid the admission fee to get into the abbey. It was really quite remarkable. It is here that almost every coronation since 1066 has been held. We saw Edward I's coronation chair- minus the Stone of Scone- and the tombs of Henry VII, his consort Elizabeth of York , Queen Elizabeth I, Mary I and Mary Queen of Scots.

We found the Poet's Corner of particular interest. It is here that numerous literary greats are interred; such as Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, and Thomas Hardy. Others have memorials though they are buried elsewhere. These include William Shakespeare, John Milton, William Wordsworth, Lewis Carroll, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake, T.S. Eliot, Geoffrey Chaucer , Lord Byron, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, all three Bronte sisters!

After our tour of Westminster Abbey we took off for Shakespeare's Globe Theater. This is not the actual Globe Theater, but a reconstruction of it. It was however, built in the same manner in which it would have been built 400 years ago, thatched roof and all. We took a quick guided tour which was very informative and it was pretty neat to see it all up close and personal. In the summer they actually hold theatrical productions there. This was our last stop in London . Next we were off and running to the airport.

We got into Liverpool station and stopped to buy some food at… of course… Mark and Spencer's! We made our way to the train that would take us to the airport and encountered a barrier in the form of a tube worker. He would not allow us onto the platform because the train was still 30 minutes out. We waited about 5 minutes and when he wasn't looking, went around him onto the platform. We did not know which platform the train would be arriving on, but when it did we sprinted to the train. A good thing we did! The crowd behind the turnstiles was like an angry, pulsing blister about to pop! People shoving from behind, as one by one, they pushed through the revolving bars!

We were one of the first onto the train and grabbed seats that included tables so we could eat. The train ended up being so packed that people stood in the aisles. I felt a little guilty, sitting there and eating while people tiredly stood for 45 miserable minutes, but not guilty enough to give up my seat!

We got to the airport, with time to spare, and as it happened our flight was delayed almost 2 hours. Once back in Germany we drove back to Missy's house, surprisingly without any wrong turns and collapsed in any bed we could find. The next morning was Ben's birthday. We had a special waffle breakfast for him, cleaned up the house, shut off the lights, turned off the heat and went home to Grünsfeld!

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