Trip to London, part the first
Mar. 10th, 2004 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So about that trip to London….
Before I get into the English oriented details, I feel the need to throw out a few facts for backstory.
1) Both Cin and I have been to London many, many times before. Our last trips as recently as 2 and a half to three years ago.
2) With the economy of the US being what it is and the cost of London being what it is, the exchange rate for the duration of our trip was approximately, including the fees for doing the actual exchanging, one pound = a human kidney. That's in US dollars, of course. With the Euro it was one pound = half a spleen. (In paper money, it was one pound to two US dollars. I would say thank God I had no crack habit that needed supporting for the duration of this trip, but OTOH I'm theoretically the proud owner of a multi-region DVD player so I think we all know *that* statement isn't factually true anymore).
3) The trip itself started two days before we left with Cin coming up to stay with me in the hopes that she would avoid any weather-related plane delays. I mention this tidbit because I first wish to set the scene regarding the kind of weather Cin and I have been used to ("Today is party cloudy with a chance that Hell will freeze over and take the New York tri-state area with it. Currently we blame the gays.") and because while picking Cin up from the airport (LaGuardia) I somehow managed, in spite of having been to that airport (again, LaGuardia) roughly 4,982,390 times both as a passenger and as a pickup person, to completely drive myself out of the parking lot, onto, I counted, 3 different highways and send myself to, I kid you not, Long Island (nowhere near LaGuardia). Luckily I managed to avoid Long Island - which I think we can all agree is a happy thing to do just on general principle - and race back to the airport to pick up Cin who was herself late getting in because the local weather caused the airport in Philadelphia to vanish from the face of the earth.
Little did we know that this would prove to be a leitmotif for our journey.
We arrived in London on Thursday night, working under the principle that my wise Older Brother (he being the one I stayed with the most often during my trips to London in the past) taught me, which is that if you don't sleep on the plane, arrive at night, and stumble directly into bed to pass out from your travel-related exhaustion then you will have no jetlag. I've done this multiple times and it's always proven true, so take that as one to grow on.
We arrived at the Harcourt Hotel, where Cin had stayed last time, and were checked in by the remarkably complex procedure of showing up at the front door and saying "Hi, we hope we're not too late." To which the woman who answered the door promptly handed us a key. This lead me to wonder if we could save a lot of money the entire trip by checking out before anyone noticed and showing up at *other* hotels and making the same statement, but that would have involved Cin repacking the jack in the box that was her luggage so we vetoed that in favor of practicality.
The hotel itself is lovely by the way. Old fashioned-y bed and breakfast kind of place which is a scant two blocks away from Victoria station. I mention this because when Cin and I stumbled out of the hotel in search of food we immediately got lost, though to be fair it was because our cab driver gave us incorrect information.
We located *another* cab driver though, got our directions to Victoria, and quickly Tubed our way over to Leicester Square (remember that name). The thought was that we would try to find some late-night place for dinner, ideally before they closed.
We passed by one place that Cin knew of. Then, once I spotted the National Gallery and St Martin in the Fields (remember *that* name too), I said I knew of a cheesy take-away kind of place which I always went to in the past and possibly they might be open for dinner. Cin said that was fine with her and I should lead on. I then immediately turned us down the wrong street.
Whoops.
So we visited the Thames and waved to Parliament and went back up *another* street whereupon I did find the place I was thinking of (which gets no shout out from me due to the poor service we got when we tried to go in to them later) but lo they were closed so verily we were SOL. Still, there was Cin's place to think of so I suggested we go back to that, especially given the late hour and all.
Cin and I then went back to Trafalgar Square and had the following conversation (or so I thought):
Cin: I need to get oriented again.
Me: [pointing] Well there's the National Gallery and there's St. Martin's
Cin: Okay then.
And we walked off.
And walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. And around twenty minutes to a half hour later then had the following conversation:
Cin/Me: Aren't we at the place you're leading me to *yet*?
Me/Cin: [blink] Wait, the place *I'm* leading us to? I thought you were in charge!
Cin/Me: D'oh!
Which means I'm here to tell you that the "stupid pair who thinks the other one is calling all the shots" does, in fact, exist outside of old Vaudeville routines. I therefore claim this trip to have been research oriented and will be claiming it on my taxes accordingly.
At that point it was coming on to midnight and Cin and I were ready to kill ourselves a bear, or possibly just a pigeon, in the name of getting some food. We decided to eat at the first open place we saw which turned out to be Indian. We slid on in, ordered up some grub, and proceeded to eat in silence because at that point the energy levels allowed for only two things and chewing and digestion topped the list.
We were more or less alone in the place but for one other table, which was filled with a lively group of mostly young men who were talking about the exploits of one of its members, who was apparently gay. Naturally upon hearing this magic word Cin and I both perked up our ears and proceeded to eavesdrop shamelessly, though I think we hid it well behind our veneer of mindlessly swallowing curry.
Towards the end of our stay one of the men, who was slightly older and the father figure of the group if not the actual father, got ready to leave and, Cin guesses, noticed us listening. At that point the conversation was on "But you *couldn't* be gay!" so he decided to call us in for the tie-breaker.
Him: You girls! Look at these boys. Do you think any of them could be gay?
Me: [diplomatically] Well… that'd be hard for me to judge.
Now at this point in time it's worth mentioning that until then my back had been to the group, so I had to actually turn around in order to see the guys. Doing so meant the guys, including Father Figure here, could see *me*.
Have I mentioned to you guys before that I've got really big breasts?
Him: [noticing the twins] You, where are you from?
Me: America
Him: Are those real?
Me: Very much so, yes.
Him: You're from *America* and those are *real*?
Me: Yes, and again yes.
Him: You're from *America* and those are *real*?
Me: Once more with yes.
Him: You are *American* and those are *real*?
Me: Stop me if you've heard this before - yes.
Him: Come! Have a drink with me! We'll go out!
Cin: She's actually *mine*, you know.
Him: Then you can both come!
Me: Not so much but thanks.
To this day I can't be certain if he was of the opinion that all American girls had fake breasts, or if breasts were going to be fake they should be American, or real big American breasts are the best of all, but still it was nice to get a warm welcome back to the UK.
Granted he could've picked up our check, though.
***
The next morning I woke up with a serious migraine and all the lovely stomach trouble that comes with it. Which lead to the following conversation.
Cin: [as I stumbled out of the bathroom for the thousandth time] Are you okay?
Me: Migraine.
Cin: Oh good. I was worried we had bad curry.
So never let it be said that Cin doesn't care.
(I kid. She was most marvey to all my aches and pains during the trip. Though at no point did she give me sex, which makes me wonder what on earth our fake internet marriage is good for.)
***
Headache eventually gone, we had a lovely English breakfast in our hotel (Or Cin did and I manfully swallowed down plain toast and tea) and then went off to the London Dungeon.
Now the Dungeon is possibly one of the cheesiest attractions that London has to offer, but OTOH I find it pound for pound (heh) to be a million times better than Madame Tussaud's so if you don't mind a little cheese with your images of medieval torture devices I've got to say the Dungeon is going to be your best bet.
I've been there about a million times before, but Cin never had so we sat through the really long queue, then squinted our way through the placards by the not really well-light at all displays. We then made our way to the interactive bits.
Sadly the boat ride (wherein you get executed - fun for the whole family!) was down, but they still had the courtroom scene that preceeds it. This is when yet again the girls got me in trouble.
Court guy: [pointing at me in the crowd] You! Come up here!
Me: [stands up on the courtroom stage]
Judge: What is she accused of?
Court guy: [looking me over] She is accused of witchcraft! And [another look] dancing… naked. Possibly while covered with oil. Whereupon she recited magic words and created a great big flaming pink poof!
Me: [silently thinks to self "Well that's certainly appropriate"]
Judge: A great big flaming pink poof, eh? Are you *proud* of that?
Me: No, ma'am.
Judge: Why not?
Me: I was trying to make two.
Judge: Two?
Me: Yes. Then I could put them together and watch them in action.
Court guy: Kinky.
Me: [shrugs] Pretty much my thought, yeah.
Now it was at this moment in time that the God of Comedy Setup Lines, who is normally my patron deity, as evidenced by my crime, apparently decided that I'd been laboring under his good graces for far too long. Because what happened next was that I was asked what I would like to have as my punishment. To which for some reason I only heard part of it and thought my options were to be burned at the stake or shot in the face. Thinking that being shot would be less painful, I picked that. Which then caused some confusion and a general reaction of "O… kay" and off I went.
Cin, however, disabused me of this notion once I rejoined her.
Cin: Why didn't you pick "Go back to New York"?
Me: That was even an option?! D'oh!
Because you see, *had* I heard that as an option I *still* would have picked "get shot in the face" except *then* when *asked* why I picked "get shot in the face" I would've had the perfect setup for the retort of "Have you *seen* who's president over there? Getting shot would be *way* less painful than dealing with him." and bang! Instant beauty thanks to the God of Comedy Setup lines. Except no, my God abandoned me, which means that I shall regret this missed opportunity until my dying day. Moreso than, say, not ever meeting Sting in person. Though the Sting thing will come close.
***
Then Cin and I discovered we had magic powers.
Here's what happened.
We decided to try to spend some time kicking around Leicester Square. You remember Leicester Square, right? The Tube stop that Cin and I had gotten off at the night before? The one Cin and I were both insanely familiar with?
Well we made it disappear.
We don't know *how* we did it, we just did.
It started out innocently enough. We had lunch not far from Trafalgar, then decided to hop over to Leicester Square to check out the shopping and whatnot. We finished lunch, once again oriented ourselves with St. Martin's, and off we went.
And got lost.
Back to St. Martin's. Check the map. Try it again.
Miss it entirely.
This happened *five times*. *Five*. Each and every time with me and Cin, who between us have perhaps 10 trips to London under our belts, plus we had a map, plus we speak English, and plus we were about *two blocks* from Leicester freakin Square at any given moment of our starting. We *still* screwed it up. At one point so badly that even though we were both prepared to swear on our souls that we were heading in the right direction only to check the map at one street corner to find out that we had gone in the exact *opposite* direction and were now about as far from it was we could get without actually involving some form of flight out of Heathrow airport.
So clearly Cin and I were made of magic, and had somehow managed to make Leicester Square disappear.
We stalked it down eventually. Literally by sneaking up on it block by block ("Okay, the map says we're here. The street sign confirms it. Let's go down to that next corner and see if it's the street we're supposed to be on.") which I guess is the only way to do it without startling it. Once there we did a little gig of joy and I stopped bothering Cindy by ceasing to sing "Just a Gigilo" long enough to add a few ABBA songs into the mix.
Don't blame me, it was playing at the place we had lunch at.
We decided to try to harness this power for use on other important geographic locations, such as the White House, then went to procure some form of chocolate.
Luckily for us Maison du Chocolat was there to provide us with all our ridiculously overpriced yet still coming with snotty attitude at no extra cost, needs. It took, by my calculation, about .000000001 second for not one but two employees there to pounce on us and ask "Can I help you?" in a Nigel Tufnel "Don't *look* at it! Don't even point! Just no!" tone of voice. In spite of - or perhaps because of - this Cin and I bought some chocolate anyway and then snuck off to one of the many places where one could find, I was disappointed to discover, Café Nero and not, as I'd been assuming all day, Café Nerd. In my defense their font choice is very boxy.
If memory serves me right we then rounded out the evening with pub grub and then passed out at the hotel. This then left us open for Saturday.
Before I get into the English oriented details, I feel the need to throw out a few facts for backstory.
1) Both Cin and I have been to London many, many times before. Our last trips as recently as 2 and a half to three years ago.
2) With the economy of the US being what it is and the cost of London being what it is, the exchange rate for the duration of our trip was approximately, including the fees for doing the actual exchanging, one pound = a human kidney. That's in US dollars, of course. With the Euro it was one pound = half a spleen. (In paper money, it was one pound to two US dollars. I would say thank God I had no crack habit that needed supporting for the duration of this trip, but OTOH I'm theoretically the proud owner of a multi-region DVD player so I think we all know *that* statement isn't factually true anymore).
3) The trip itself started two days before we left with Cin coming up to stay with me in the hopes that she would avoid any weather-related plane delays. I mention this tidbit because I first wish to set the scene regarding the kind of weather Cin and I have been used to ("Today is party cloudy with a chance that Hell will freeze over and take the New York tri-state area with it. Currently we blame the gays.") and because while picking Cin up from the airport (LaGuardia) I somehow managed, in spite of having been to that airport (again, LaGuardia) roughly 4,982,390 times both as a passenger and as a pickup person, to completely drive myself out of the parking lot, onto, I counted, 3 different highways and send myself to, I kid you not, Long Island (nowhere near LaGuardia). Luckily I managed to avoid Long Island - which I think we can all agree is a happy thing to do just on general principle - and race back to the airport to pick up Cin who was herself late getting in because the local weather caused the airport in Philadelphia to vanish from the face of the earth.
Little did we know that this would prove to be a leitmotif for our journey.
We arrived in London on Thursday night, working under the principle that my wise Older Brother (he being the one I stayed with the most often during my trips to London in the past) taught me, which is that if you don't sleep on the plane, arrive at night, and stumble directly into bed to pass out from your travel-related exhaustion then you will have no jetlag. I've done this multiple times and it's always proven true, so take that as one to grow on.
We arrived at the Harcourt Hotel, where Cin had stayed last time, and were checked in by the remarkably complex procedure of showing up at the front door and saying "Hi, we hope we're not too late." To which the woman who answered the door promptly handed us a key. This lead me to wonder if we could save a lot of money the entire trip by checking out before anyone noticed and showing up at *other* hotels and making the same statement, but that would have involved Cin repacking the jack in the box that was her luggage so we vetoed that in favor of practicality.
The hotel itself is lovely by the way. Old fashioned-y bed and breakfast kind of place which is a scant two blocks away from Victoria station. I mention this because when Cin and I stumbled out of the hotel in search of food we immediately got lost, though to be fair it was because our cab driver gave us incorrect information.
We located *another* cab driver though, got our directions to Victoria, and quickly Tubed our way over to Leicester Square (remember that name). The thought was that we would try to find some late-night place for dinner, ideally before they closed.
We passed by one place that Cin knew of. Then, once I spotted the National Gallery and St Martin in the Fields (remember *that* name too), I said I knew of a cheesy take-away kind of place which I always went to in the past and possibly they might be open for dinner. Cin said that was fine with her and I should lead on. I then immediately turned us down the wrong street.
Whoops.
So we visited the Thames and waved to Parliament and went back up *another* street whereupon I did find the place I was thinking of (which gets no shout out from me due to the poor service we got when we tried to go in to them later) but lo they were closed so verily we were SOL. Still, there was Cin's place to think of so I suggested we go back to that, especially given the late hour and all.
Cin and I then went back to Trafalgar Square and had the following conversation (or so I thought):
Cin: I need to get oriented again.
Me: [pointing] Well there's the National Gallery and there's St. Martin's
Cin: Okay then.
And we walked off.
And walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. And around twenty minutes to a half hour later then had the following conversation:
Cin/Me: Aren't we at the place you're leading me to *yet*?
Me/Cin: [blink] Wait, the place *I'm* leading us to? I thought you were in charge!
Cin/Me: D'oh!
Which means I'm here to tell you that the "stupid pair who thinks the other one is calling all the shots" does, in fact, exist outside of old Vaudeville routines. I therefore claim this trip to have been research oriented and will be claiming it on my taxes accordingly.
At that point it was coming on to midnight and Cin and I were ready to kill ourselves a bear, or possibly just a pigeon, in the name of getting some food. We decided to eat at the first open place we saw which turned out to be Indian. We slid on in, ordered up some grub, and proceeded to eat in silence because at that point the energy levels allowed for only two things and chewing and digestion topped the list.
We were more or less alone in the place but for one other table, which was filled with a lively group of mostly young men who were talking about the exploits of one of its members, who was apparently gay. Naturally upon hearing this magic word Cin and I both perked up our ears and proceeded to eavesdrop shamelessly, though I think we hid it well behind our veneer of mindlessly swallowing curry.
Towards the end of our stay one of the men, who was slightly older and the father figure of the group if not the actual father, got ready to leave and, Cin guesses, noticed us listening. At that point the conversation was on "But you *couldn't* be gay!" so he decided to call us in for the tie-breaker.
Him: You girls! Look at these boys. Do you think any of them could be gay?
Me: [diplomatically] Well… that'd be hard for me to judge.
Now at this point in time it's worth mentioning that until then my back had been to the group, so I had to actually turn around in order to see the guys. Doing so meant the guys, including Father Figure here, could see *me*.
Have I mentioned to you guys before that I've got really big breasts?
Him: [noticing the twins] You, where are you from?
Me: America
Him: Are those real?
Me: Very much so, yes.
Him: You're from *America* and those are *real*?
Me: Yes, and again yes.
Him: You're from *America* and those are *real*?
Me: Once more with yes.
Him: You are *American* and those are *real*?
Me: Stop me if you've heard this before - yes.
Him: Come! Have a drink with me! We'll go out!
Cin: She's actually *mine*, you know.
Him: Then you can both come!
Me: Not so much but thanks.
To this day I can't be certain if he was of the opinion that all American girls had fake breasts, or if breasts were going to be fake they should be American, or real big American breasts are the best of all, but still it was nice to get a warm welcome back to the UK.
Granted he could've picked up our check, though.
***
The next morning I woke up with a serious migraine and all the lovely stomach trouble that comes with it. Which lead to the following conversation.
Cin: [as I stumbled out of the bathroom for the thousandth time] Are you okay?
Me: Migraine.
Cin: Oh good. I was worried we had bad curry.
So never let it be said that Cin doesn't care.
(I kid. She was most marvey to all my aches and pains during the trip. Though at no point did she give me sex, which makes me wonder what on earth our fake internet marriage is good for.)
***
Headache eventually gone, we had a lovely English breakfast in our hotel (Or Cin did and I manfully swallowed down plain toast and tea) and then went off to the London Dungeon.
Now the Dungeon is possibly one of the cheesiest attractions that London has to offer, but OTOH I find it pound for pound (heh) to be a million times better than Madame Tussaud's so if you don't mind a little cheese with your images of medieval torture devices I've got to say the Dungeon is going to be your best bet.
I've been there about a million times before, but Cin never had so we sat through the really long queue, then squinted our way through the placards by the not really well-light at all displays. We then made our way to the interactive bits.
Sadly the boat ride (wherein you get executed - fun for the whole family!) was down, but they still had the courtroom scene that preceeds it. This is when yet again the girls got me in trouble.
Court guy: [pointing at me in the crowd] You! Come up here!
Me: [stands up on the courtroom stage]
Judge: What is she accused of?
Court guy: [looking me over] She is accused of witchcraft! And [another look] dancing… naked. Possibly while covered with oil. Whereupon she recited magic words and created a great big flaming pink poof!
Me: [silently thinks to self "Well that's certainly appropriate"]
Judge: A great big flaming pink poof, eh? Are you *proud* of that?
Me: No, ma'am.
Judge: Why not?
Me: I was trying to make two.
Judge: Two?
Me: Yes. Then I could put them together and watch them in action.
Court guy: Kinky.
Me: [shrugs] Pretty much my thought, yeah.
Now it was at this moment in time that the God of Comedy Setup Lines, who is normally my patron deity, as evidenced by my crime, apparently decided that I'd been laboring under his good graces for far too long. Because what happened next was that I was asked what I would like to have as my punishment. To which for some reason I only heard part of it and thought my options were to be burned at the stake or shot in the face. Thinking that being shot would be less painful, I picked that. Which then caused some confusion and a general reaction of "O… kay" and off I went.
Cin, however, disabused me of this notion once I rejoined her.
Cin: Why didn't you pick "Go back to New York"?
Me: That was even an option?! D'oh!
Because you see, *had* I heard that as an option I *still* would have picked "get shot in the face" except *then* when *asked* why I picked "get shot in the face" I would've had the perfect setup for the retort of "Have you *seen* who's president over there? Getting shot would be *way* less painful than dealing with him." and bang! Instant beauty thanks to the God of Comedy Setup lines. Except no, my God abandoned me, which means that I shall regret this missed opportunity until my dying day. Moreso than, say, not ever meeting Sting in person. Though the Sting thing will come close.
***
Then Cin and I discovered we had magic powers.
Here's what happened.
We decided to try to spend some time kicking around Leicester Square. You remember Leicester Square, right? The Tube stop that Cin and I had gotten off at the night before? The one Cin and I were both insanely familiar with?
Well we made it disappear.
We don't know *how* we did it, we just did.
It started out innocently enough. We had lunch not far from Trafalgar, then decided to hop over to Leicester Square to check out the shopping and whatnot. We finished lunch, once again oriented ourselves with St. Martin's, and off we went.
And got lost.
Back to St. Martin's. Check the map. Try it again.
Miss it entirely.
This happened *five times*. *Five*. Each and every time with me and Cin, who between us have perhaps 10 trips to London under our belts, plus we had a map, plus we speak English, and plus we were about *two blocks* from Leicester freakin Square at any given moment of our starting. We *still* screwed it up. At one point so badly that even though we were both prepared to swear on our souls that we were heading in the right direction only to check the map at one street corner to find out that we had gone in the exact *opposite* direction and were now about as far from it was we could get without actually involving some form of flight out of Heathrow airport.
So clearly Cin and I were made of magic, and had somehow managed to make Leicester Square disappear.
We stalked it down eventually. Literally by sneaking up on it block by block ("Okay, the map says we're here. The street sign confirms it. Let's go down to that next corner and see if it's the street we're supposed to be on.") which I guess is the only way to do it without startling it. Once there we did a little gig of joy and I stopped bothering Cindy by ceasing to sing "Just a Gigilo" long enough to add a few ABBA songs into the mix.
Don't blame me, it was playing at the place we had lunch at.
We decided to try to harness this power for use on other important geographic locations, such as the White House, then went to procure some form of chocolate.
Luckily for us Maison du Chocolat was there to provide us with all our ridiculously overpriced yet still coming with snotty attitude at no extra cost, needs. It took, by my calculation, about .000000001 second for not one but two employees there to pounce on us and ask "Can I help you?" in a Nigel Tufnel "Don't *look* at it! Don't even point! Just no!" tone of voice. In spite of - or perhaps because of - this Cin and I bought some chocolate anyway and then snuck off to one of the many places where one could find, I was disappointed to discover, Café Nero and not, as I'd been assuming all day, Café Nerd. In my defense their font choice is very boxy.
If memory serves me right we then rounded out the evening with pub grub and then passed out at the hotel. This then left us open for Saturday.