Jet lag was the theme of the day. We all awoke much too early, a little after 5, thinking it was later because it was so light, all of us groggy and grumpy. Suzie and I managed to convince the boys that we all needed a little more sleep, which worked well, since when we woke up about 3 hours later, we all felt much better, at least for a while.
We decided, for lack of a better destination (although it turned out to be a disappointment, in my book anyway) to go to Buckingham Palace. We had all purchased “Oyster” cards which allowed us to take any bus or tube line, and we left our neighborhood on a classic double-decker bus, sitting on top, of course, which was very cool. I think I mentioned in our last post that our neighborhood is what might be called “transitional,” which means it’s primarily still an ethnic neighborhood that feels perfectly safe in the daytime but might not be at night (although we’ll not test that theory). We gradually got into nicer areas until we were finally on the other side of the Thames. Getting off the bus, we (meaning I) got turned around, but we eventually found our way to Buckingham Palace. Which was, as I said, disappointing — an imposing, hulking building that seemed more institutional than beautiful or charming. The best part was walking away from it: Past the statue of Queen Victoria (“Regina Imperitrix,” the inscription says), from which you have a pretty view of the Mall, then through St. James Park, accidentally winding up at the ‘exit’ end of Westminster Cathedral, which was very, um, cathedral-like but frankly of more historical than viewing interest (maybe I was having a bad day).
At this point, the hustle-bustle, noise, congestion, and tourisy nature of the area was starting to bug us, so we decided to randomly take a bus away from the area to a location that would hopefully be a cheaper place to have lunch and one with fewer tourists. At the bus stop, poor Andrew was semi-accosted by a sweet, talkative elderly nun who had once lived in Los Angeles; she grabbed his hand and would not let go (“She was pulling me really hard Dad”), so we took the very first bus to escape her. We scored the very front seats in the upper deck, which is a wild place to experience the skill of the bus driver as he weaved in and out of traffic, seemingly inches away at times from hitting a pole or another car, and driving, for God’s sake, on the wrong side of the road. Eventually we ended up on Kings Road in Chelsea, an upscale yuppy-ish area that would fit pretty well in San Francisco, and had a late lunch in a pub that seemed to have a vegetarian bent; Andrew was about to order a spinach and lentil burger until he realized it wouldn’t have any meat in it. The food was good, not great, and ridiculously expensive (oddly enough, even though meals in restaurants seem to be very, very expensive, food in grocery stores isn’t so bad, some things are even less than in the states (we got a wonderful baguette yesterday for .75 pounds, about $1.50, and it was hugely better than even the upscale bread in Sonoma County, and a tasty French cheese round for 3.50 pounds ($7.00) that would set you back $15.00 at least at Molsberry’s Market).
From Chelsea we chose the Science museum as our next stop (free admission), which took us north through a very upscale neighborhood, past a French cultural center and a couple of French schools (we were wondering why no one around us seemed to be speaking English), and which included Will’s much-sought telephone booth picture.
At this point, the jet lag started to catch up with us. The science museum was mislocated on the map we were using, and so we walked an extra mile to find it, although it did take us by accident past the Royal Albert Hall and a weird skinny brick building.
The science museum was OK, not great, and laid out in such a way that no part of it was easy to find or to get to from any other part, often requiring going up an elevator to another floor and then down again to get to a different part of the floor you started on. The displays were often too dark, and there was too much emphasis on technology — old steam engines, automobile engines, jet engines, lathes, etc., etc., although they did have one of the original metal mirrors from the famous 40 foot telescope of Frederick William Herschel, who discovered Uranus, which I thought was very cool. The biggest problem with the science museum is that almost all of its cafes were closed, so that at the very time we were desperate for caffeine, none was to be found, which almost killed me and Suzie, to the point that when we did find the one open cafe in the place and had our lattes, they did almost no good.
The trip back to our house was horrible: We were really run down, and had to take a long walk on tired feet to a tube station, followed by rides on two different trains that were hot, humid, and packed with rush hour travelers. By the time we got home, we were whipped, although a dinner (pesto pasta, bread, and salad) did wonders. This was followed by watching France go down to a disappointing defeat in the Euro 2008 and, of course, blogging. More tomorrow.
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