Yes. We did leave London on the 31st of October, so this post is a bit stale. However, the last 10 days have been busy with seeing the sites. Late will have to suffice.
The original plan was to arrive in London late in the evening, and then fly off the next afternoon for Cairo. However, we had enjoyed London so much when we were there in August, that we decided to stay longer. We ended up with another five days.
One of the things we wanted to do in London was to shop. Not that any of us are big shoppers, but the day we left Morocco, I left my running shoes on the hotel terrace to dry, and forgot about them. When you wear a size 14/15 shoe, you don’t just walk into any old store, especially in a developing country, and expect to buy a pair. I thought London would be the best place of the whole trip to find them. Maybe it is, but it was a struggle. I spent the better part of two days looking, before I finally found something that would work. Margit, also, was frustrated in her shopping. She needed to find her arthritis medicine, but it could not be done in just the five days we were there. There is apparently a shortage of the medicine, and it needs to be ordered and shipped. And ordered by a British doctor, not an American one. (The good news is we were able to walk into a pharmacy in Egypt and buy it with no problems. Now that was a pleasant surprise!)
Our lodging in London was the most disappointing since my near-sleepless night back in Honduras. It was a hostel, but grossly overpriced. The kitchen consisted of a tiny microwave and mini-fridge. Breakfast meant a loaf of white bread that was placed on the counter, with a tub of margarine, and some instant coffee. All of which you prepared yourself. Plus, there was no seating, so you had to sit on the stairs, or in your room on the bed. Oh, and the bathrooms were (not) maintained by some guys whose idea of cleaning was similar to a bunch of frat boys. And for part of our stay, there was only one bathroom for the entire hostel. Oh well. At least there were no bed bugs, and it was close to where the Olympics are going to be held, so we could see the construction sites from the train.
The highlights of our time in London, and the stay was primarily one of highlights, included some of the same ones from our August stop, so I will not repeat the description of those places. We visited the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, Foyles Bookstore (where Bjorn would have preferred to have spent his entire stay in London), and Hampstead Heath, both for it’s ambience and frozen yogurt. Oh, and Starbucks. Good coffee has been hard to find. The new places included visits to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is primarily an art and design museum, and the London Zoo. Margit and Emma were the V and A visitors, so I will leave that description to Emma. While they went there, Bjorn and I went to the Natural History Museum to see the Dinosaur exhibit. On our last trip, we ran out of time before we could get there. Part of that was due to the long lines, one of the drawbacks to not charging an admission, and part of it was there was simply too much to see in one trip. It was a good exhibit, interesting, though perhaps a bit dated.
All in all, it was a great time in a great city. We’ll be back someday.
long4adventure