Well it’s been almost 5 months since Alicia and I returned from our short little jaunt over to the U.K., and I don’t know if anyone’s actually been waiting for these travel logs or not, but they’re obviously long overdue. It ended up being a bit of work to construct coherent paragraphs from the haphazard notes that I had scribbled during our various train rides in between destinations. Posting this now seems almost irrelevant, but I still wanted to delve back into the details of the trip, if not for the benefit of other would-be travellers, then simply for my own personal enjoyment of reliving the experience.

Our U.K. adventure began with a fairly uneventful flight in to Gatwick Airport. At the time I was a little unsure if it was a good idea to fly to Gatwick, since Heathrow is obviously closer to the center of London, which was where we would be spending the first few nights. However, the Gatwick Express is a train that runs every couple of minutes directly into Victoria Station, and from there it was quite easy to catch The Underground to Russell Square.

A lot of people had warned us beforehand that taking the tube in London was super confusing and a bit overwhelming. In retrospect, I don’t know what these people were smoking because there couldn’t have been an easier or more convenient form of transportation. Not only are the trains fast and punctual, but they also provided access to a good majority of the city. (Toronto’s subway line is somewhat embarassing in comparison.)

We had booked ahead of time with the Hotel Russell in the Bloomsbury district of London. The advantage was that the hotel was located in a nice area, and central to just about everything we wanted to see. That said, it wasn’t necessarily within walking distance of a lot of major attractions, and we ended up relying on The Underground for most of the things we wanted to do. I know a lot of people who prefer to take taxis everywhere when they’re on vacation, but not only is taking the public transit cheaper, it’s also a good way to rub shoulders with the locals, if you will.

After we checked in to the hotel (which was quite nice, by our standards), we wandered across the street to Russell Square, a relaxing park where we were able to grab a quick lunch. There were pigeons and squirrels everywhere, and the pigeons were quite aggressive. There were signs warning people not to leave their food unattended, because as soon as you walked away, they would swarm the table and gulp down anything they could get their beaks on. Yikes.

For the rest of the day, we just did a lot of walking, trying to get our bearings and catch a few of the obvious sights. It was nice that many of the streets had the words “Look Left” and “Look Right” painted on the crosswalks, reminding dumb tourists like us that the cars drive on the opposite side of the road. We ended up hiking down to Piccadilly Circus, stopping at a few stores along the way including a large HMV which looked exactly like the HMVs back home (minus the Canadian content, of course). We checked out the Parliament Buildings, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and St. James Park, where, strangely enough there was a Canadian War Memorial for Canadian soldiers who had fought in World War I and II. Then went over the bridge to The Eye and back again. We didn’t actually ride on The Eye as it seemed a bit on the pricey side, although in retrospect I kind of wish we would have done it anyway, even if it was a tacky touristy thing to do. As the trip went on, we gradually tried to stop worrying about the money so much because it can drive you mad just thinking about the exchange rate all the time.

We started to notice that almost every street or location in London has been immortalized in a song. We passed Wardour Street (The Jam’s “A Bomb On Wardour Street”), and we passed through the tube station at Mornington Crescent (Belle & Sebastian’s “Mornington Crescent”) and Leicester Square (Rancid’s “Leicester Square”). We never did get to Abbey Road, but everywhere you turned there was something that reminded you of how much history the city has to it. (Check out this massive list of songs about London.)

From there we took the subway back to our hotel as we were exhausted. For some reason I happened to see quite a lot of advertisements for books throughout The Underground. I don’t know why this struck me as odd, but you almost never see billboards or public ads for books in North America. Apparently the Brits still like to read, so good for them! We grabbed some odds and ends for supper at a grocery story just around the block from our hotel, and then I basically crashed. Alicia couldn’t sleep so she ended up staying up and watching some quality British TV for part of the night. I remember waking up a couple of times because she was laughing hysterically at a curious show called Mock The Week. It was an improvisational comedy program, sort of like Whose Line Is It Anyway?, where the comedians riff on current events and news headlines. In my drowsy state I couldn’t tell if it was actually funny, or if Alicia was just overtired. (Probably a little bit of both.)

The next morning we woke up and indulged in a nice continental breakfast downstairs in the hotel dining room. It was our first and last one, after we found out that it carried a hefty price tag of 20 pounds (almost $40 Canadian) each per day! Even if we did eat a lot for breakfast (neither us do), it still would have been a pretty outrageous price to pay. So yeah… in case you hadn’t figured it out, England can be pretty damn expensive.

On Day 2, we started by walking over to the British Museum, which was only about 10 minutes away from Russell Square. On the way there we passed a sign for some sort of Animation or Cartoon Museum which I was somewhat interested in, but we never did end up visiting it. The British Museum wasn’t the most exciting stop on our trip, although it was free, like all museums in England I believe. It did house some interesting things like the Rosetta Stone (used to decode a lot of Egyptian hieroglyphics) and a lot of cool Greek, Egyptian, African and Asian artifacts. It’s always a bit odd when you realize that these museums own things that were essentially stolen from other countries back in the day… but hey, let’s just pretend they’ve been “borrowing” the stuff for a really long time.

Then we took the tube up to Camden Market to do a little “hobnobbing” (whatever that means) and shopping. We worked our way through the throngs of people and actually found some stuff to spend money on. Alicia bought a new coat, and was able to talk the vendor down to a pretty amazing price. Myself, being the non-confrontational wuss that I am, preferred not to haggle where possible, but I ended up purchasing some classic pop culture t-shirts (that I probably could have just as easily bought somewhere in downtown Toronto). I did see some other fellow North American geeks poring over the selection of video game and movie-related garb beside me, so at least I wasn’t alone.

From here, we trucked on over to the Tower of London. The guided tour was quite entertaining, and yes, once again made even better because it was free. You follow along with an official Beefeater (not the booze) who tells stories about the many famous people who have lived and died within the walls of the tower. This is, of course, where Anne Boleyn was held before being executed on Tower Hill. Yes, the Queen’s Guard keep watch over the area, and no they won’t respond to you if you try talking to them. We also had a chance to check out the Crown Jewels, which seemed like an absolutely ludicrous display of wealth. I didn’t get a very long look at them though, because there is a moving walkway in the room that prevents you from staring at them for longer than a few seconds. I guess that’s one way to keep people from crowding around the glass cases.

On the way back, we found out why the subway trains in London are always on time. Once they start closing the doors and pulling away, they don’t stop for anything! We had tried to slip in at the last minute as one of the trains was about to leave, and as the doors were shutting I put my arm out, expecting it to react and open for me. It did not, and as I continued to walk forward, the doors shut on my backpack, almost pulling me out of the car. Luckily, a worker must have seen it and quickly released the doors again so that I could pull myself inside. All the locals were looking at me unamused, most likely muttering “Stupid American” under their breath.

Later that night we went out and caught a movie. Yeah, I know, what a lame thing to do on a Saturday night, right? The truth is, I had kind of been hoping we’d be able to see Ricky Gervais on his Fame standup comedy tour while we were in London. I had tried to order tickets before we left for our trip but alas it was sold out. Considering how expensive the list price for the tickets were, I didn’t even want to try looking into scalpers.

At Leicester Square, there were at least 5 movie theatres within a 5 minute walk of each other (not to mention a ton of stage theatres as well), and after scoping out the listings, we decided to check out Eagle vs Shark at a small indie theatre on a quiet side street. We had a bit of time to kill before the movie started so we just walked around, soaking up the vibe. The Square was absolutely packed with groups of young people going out to the pub for the night. It’s interesting because in England you can drink in public, with the exception of The Underground where a police officer can ask you to hand it over (but only if he feels you’re out of line). Clearly it’s a recipe for disaster, and I’m guessing it can get quite rowdy on some nights. That said, I think most people live in pretty tight quarters in London, so being able to hang out in public places with their “mates” is a pretty important aspect of their lives.

Eagle vs Shark was a lot of fun, and I’m glad we got a chance to see it. Something tells me that Kiwi comedy is a close relation to the dry British sense of humour because the small crowd was loving it. One thing though — there were wayyyyy too many commercials before the movie started. If you think we have it bad in North America, think again.

For the most part, London felt like a big European city to me, but kind of similar to Toronto in some ways. It’s very multicultural, and perhaps the touristy nature of it made it a bit difficult to get a distinctly British experience out of it. Some of the chain stores were different, but the fact remained that there were still major chain stores and franchises everywhere. The world is starting to blur together I think.

And just like that, our time in London was drawing to a close. Realistically, we probably would have needed at least a week to get to all the things that we wanted to see, but I was ready to move on to the next stage of the trip. The next morning, we caught the tube up to Paddington Station, and from there took a train to Bath. We passed through the London suburb of Slough on the way out, which some may recognize as the place where the British version of The Office is set. (Incidentally, Ali G’s neighbourhood in Staines is just outside of London as well.)

Next up: Bath, Stonehenge and York!