Day 2

Sunday July 29

Went to sleep around 11pm LA Time, woke up around 10am London Time - that means I got app. 3 hours of restless sleep. I am tired. In the AM, started watching Night at the Museum with Ben Stiller but when they start the descent they close off the whole media system so I didn't get to finish. Luckily it was another one I had downloaded so I can just finish it whenever. They served this croissant with egg and cheese thing for breakfast. Needless to say I didn't eat it, but I did eat the fruit and stuff that came with it.

11:50am GMT - Plane lands nearly 1 hour early!!!! It's not raining!! In fact it appears to be a rather lovely day in London with puffy clouds and bright blue skies. Thank you!!! Now stay like this for 3 more days please! :)

12:55pm GMT - on the train to London with luggage in tow. Took a couple of neat-looking pictures of the station in the airport. We'll see how they come out. The worst part of the whole airport experience was the walk from the gate to the baggage area, I think I got on about 10 of those moving walkways in a row, they felt like they were never-ending!! Passport control was nothing, she just asked me a few questions about where I was staying, for how long, and where I was going next. I asked if she wanted to see my ticket to Portugal and she said no. That was that. Painless and easy. Then I got to baggage claim and I kid you not, I had my bag in literally 5 min. Followed the signs for people who had no goods to declare, bought my 6.90 pound Heathrow Connect ticket from a machine with my fee-free CapOne card. I don't really understand why anyone would bother paying more than double to take the Heathrow Express - it is only about 10 min shorter. I suppose I could've made the earlier train to Stratford had I taken the Express, but the Heathrow Connect was perfectly smooth and comfortable - like a fancy brand new subway almost. Anyway, got to Paddington station and found the line for the tube to take me a measly 2 stops to Marylebone station where I will get the train to Stratford-upon-Avon - buy a single tube ticket for 4 pounds using easy-to-use machine. Used my shiny new 5 pound notes. Yes, that's 8 dollars to go 2 subway stops. WELCOME TO LONDON. Obviously if you travel a lot it is much less but for one ticket, yep. Ouch. If I had known another way to get there I would have but the website said it was an 18 min walk. So, no thanks.

1:35 GMT - Get to Marylebone, the escalator from the Tube is so long it feels like it'll never end. Seriously. I just kept telling myself. Look straight ahead look straight ahead. Anyway it did land and then I am instantly glad I took a small suitcase. Even though it's heavy and so is my backpack, pulling it up about 20 steps was so much easier with the small size than if it'd been bigger. So anyway, I find the ticket window. Didn't want to try my luck at the machines this time since I needed to get to a particular place and whatnot. The man was nice but of course, I had just missed a train to Stratford, I figured as much. But I had planned on taking the 15:33 train all along anyway, so the fact that I was here with about 2 hours to spare when all along I had worried about potentially missing it was fine. So I sat and ate some of my food (and threw away the perishable stuff that was out all night). Ticket was 14.90 pounds, got some kind of discount rate. Had no problem using my CapOne card to buy it. So the total to get from Heathrow to Stratford will end up being about $52. My oh my. Again, welcome to London and thank you US Dollar *rolls eyes*

2:20pm GMT - so here I am at Marylebone train station writing this and all of the above. I wandered around, used the (pretty nasty) restroom, bought a bottle of water for 60p (which seemed relatively reasonable for that matter, considering the smallest water bottles were more than double that even if you figure in the exchange) at a posh-looking little food mart in the station, went outside the station and snapped a couple pictures of London in action as it's my only time to see it I suppose, and now I am just going to rest my back and neck (heavy backpack:( ) for an hour or so til the train boards, etc. My computer's picking up all kinds of wireless signals but they don't appear to be working. Oh well!

My cell phone is showing "no service"… NO SERVICE IN LONDON??????????? Maybe this thing really IS a piece of crap. If I get to Lisbon and it still has no service I guess I will have no choice but to find some kind of SIM Card locally that will roam. How odd. Oh well, luckily I don't need it at the moment. Will deal with it later.

So I guess the plan of attack is to try to stay awake until a reasonable bedtime hour. Hopefully I will be able to fall asleep then, at say 10pm GMT, even though it will feel like 2pm to me LOL. Then I can adjust pretty quickly.

I must say, in all my research for my trip, all I read were horror stories about Heathrow - lost and stolen luggage, long lines, horrible this, awful that, blahblahblah. I guess I am now ruined because of the horror that is LAX, I got really lucky today, or I was really smart by intentionally arriving on a Sunday (when, as I had suspected all along, it was really just plain quiet throughout the entire airport). My guess is a combo of all three, and my advice to those who might be reading this who might be planning a trip to Europe through Heathrow - ARRIVE ON A SUNDAY! Seriously, I had ZERO trouble whatsoever. Seriously, my bag came out so fast I had to check it 3 times to actually believe it was mine. It just was totally smooth and painless. So for those who have had trouble, that is my advice. Take it or leave it I suppose :P But I can't imagine doing the trips I did today through the tube and up stairs and all that on a busy weekday or something. No way.

6:50pm GMT - Sitting in the B&B Lounge. on the train ride, I figured out why the phone wasn't working - it was set to the frequency for US bands only, so I changed that and picked up UK service, phew. The rice on the train was beautiful once it got out of London - rolling hills, animals (horses and sheep mostly), some cute towns here and there, and some remnants of the recent flooding. I just kept marveling over the clear clean blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds. The train moved relatively slowly, so I was even able to get some nice pictures.

Now on to the B&B, after a short couple minutes' walk from the train station I reach the guest house, ring the bell, and I am greeted warmly by Val and her Husband. They are so sweet, he sat me down and showed me everything I need to know, including a map where all the stuff is, an idea of a walk by the water, restaurants/pubs, etc. So helpful and so nice. Then they showed me around my room, which to my surprise was up two very steep windy flights of stairs. But Val the sweet thing that she is carried my suitcase up for me. Mom you would not like it at all. The room is teeny but adorable and clean. Took a couple pictures of it. Pretty much has anything I can imagine I'd need. The little lounge here is great, very "English" and homey with a nice couch to sit on, which is where I'm typing this. They even gave me a "breakfast menu" to have us fill out for tomorrow. Pretty cool eh.

Hey, someone just walked into the lounge, he's from NYC to see his son graduate from Oxford. We're chatting about flight lengths and jetlag and stuff, this is great. This is why I took this vacation. Day 1 isn't even over and it's awesome already.

10:37pm GMT - Amanda came shortly after I stopped writing earlier, showed her the room and we set off to wander and find some food. Found the Garrick, or something like that. The oldest pub in Stratford. For us all that mattered is that 1) it was open and 2) it had decent-sounding options cheap. I had some chicken finger appetizer that was really tasty - chicken fingers in fish n chips type light batter, and we split an appetizer of little balls of bread in a garlicy/herb sauce with tasty olives and cherry tomatoes on top…mmmm… and I tried a Pimms and lemonade at Amanda's advice. QUITE tasty indeed. But "lemonade" is not like our lemonade. As Amanda described, it is basically 7up or Sprite, aka lemon soda. Came back here, settled in a bit, figured out the wireless (WOOHOO!) and gonna try to sleep soon!