Day 1: Hello, London! Show Us EVERYTHING!

Before I begin posting any of our 6,500+ pictures from this trip…

PHOTO DISCLAIMER: Since my last trip report, we finally upgraded to a DSLR camera—not a fancy one, just the bottom-of-the-line Canon Rebel. But we’ve basically left it in Auto mode for five years, so, like, what’s the point? For Christmas, I gave Patrick a private camera lesson with Lindsay from INLIGHT Photo Workshops so we could finally learn all that super-basic stuff like aperture and ISO and how to outsmart the camera in situations where manual mode is the only way to get the shot you want. The class was fantastic, and Patrick took to it like a duck to water. BUT he didn’t have any time to practice before our trip. So a lot of practicing was done on the fly, and this may be apparent in the photos. I will try to edit out the test shots, but please forgive us if some of the focus is soft or the exposure is wrong. What matters is that Patrick seemed to be having a ton of fun experimenting and learning new ways to capture images on this trip! 

Every other time I’ve flown to Europe, I always ended up wrecked by jetlag for at least the first day of my trip. But this time, we did it right! I booked a flight that departed around 8pm our time and arrived around 3pm London time, so all we had to do was eat dinner, go to sleep, wake up, have breakfast and get off the plane. And because there’s no way you can get eight quality hours of sleep on a plane, we were plenty tired at an appropriate bedtime once we arrived in London.

As I gushed in the Intro post, Virgin Atlantic’s Premium Economy was a revelation. I loved how roomy the seats were, how much space there was between seats and, most importantly, that there were only two seats in our row, saving some poor schmuck from accidentally being kneed in the groin every time one of us needed to get out to stretch our legs!

The seatback TVs were a lot bigger than the ones on Virgin America (R.I.P.), with a better interface for seeing where we were on our trip.

 photo IMG_0030_zps4kcjjwmm.jpg

They even have a virtual “porthole” feature, just like the Disney Cruise Line!
 photo IMG_0031_zpsvupurqvm.jpg

 

I was so excited about getting a real meal on real china that I took some horrible photos for you:

 photo IMG_0025_zpsecrijk1m.jpg

Oooh! #291 Wheat Round Roll With Oats—my favorite!

 photo 35e7f4bf-008d-4336-b80f-c95c824db227_zpsykmki0ip.jpg

Believe it or not, this photo has actually been cropped down to its LEAST gross-looking part!

OK, sure, we were basically getting a choice between Tiny Toons‘ “brown lumps in gray sauce or gray lumps in brown sauce,” but they were actually pretty good lumps and sauce! And the chocolate tart was as good as or better than anything you’d find at Disney.

In the morning/noon/whenever, they woke us up with breakfast:

 photo IMG_0029_zpscftstcjh.jpg

Mmmm…. purple…..

I have no photos of the Wonder Wall, but it’s just a shelf at the front of the cabin where they put out snacks you can grab throughout the flight. On Virgin Atlantic you get sensible British snacks like crisps and shortbread cookies, nothing like Japan Airline’s wacky snacks of, like, fruity air puffs and dried squid eyeballs.

The only sour note was the ridiculous WiFi offering via T-Mobile. Your only choices are 150 MB for $22 or [snort] 40 MB for I-don’t-know-how-much-cuz-that-would-be-like-one-cat-video… And this is on a 9- to 11-hour flight! Even old-skool legacy carriers in the US sell length-of-flight passes, and those are only about $10 or $15 more.

The first time I logged on, I used up all 150 MB in 15 minutes, apparently because I had a tab open with Apartment Therapy and their stoopid auto-play videos! On the return flight, which was 11+ hours and none of it during sleeping time, I “treated” myself to three data sessions, but … yeeesh! That’s more than half what I pay for an entire month of home Internet!

 photo be26eccc-c6f9-4a65-9128-1d80909f454a_zps5kpwqmzf.png

 

When we got off the plane we were herded over to passport control, which only took about 30 minutes to get through. We are those squares who get completely nervous around authorities for absolutely no reason, which meant we were rapidly and excitedly overexplaining all our vacation plans to the bored-looking border agent (“…And then, we’re going to Scotland! We’re going on a tour of movie sites! Do you like movies? We love movies! Have you seen Hell or High Water? You would love Hell or High Water! OK, it’s not about Scotland, but the director is FROM Scotland! And he’s making another movie, and this time it IS about Scotland…!!!”)

Our baggage was already off the carousel by the time we got to the baggage claim, so we just shuffled through customs and stumbled out into the arrivals area.  Maybe I was a little jet-lagged after all… I dunno why else I thought these random photos would be helpful to you….

 photo DLPD1 94_zpsmsmlatxg.jpg

Upon arrival at Heathrow Terminal 3, be sure to look for… this expanse of floor?

 photo DLPD1 95_zpsae7juj46.jpg

What’s that waaaay in the back? It looks like a mini grocery store. It’s something called M&S Simply Food. I wonder if that’s an offshoot of Marks & Spencer. Gee, 20 years ago Marks & Spencer was just a department store known for its sturdy underwear! Wow, have times changed! Also, where am I again and why is there an underwear store in the Arrivals lounge?

If you are meeting a private car at Heathrow Terminal 3, the driver will probably tell you to meet him at the WH Smith shop you can barely see at the back of this shot. Be sure to bring this photo with you and hold it up to the guy holding the “ANONY JUSTIN-MILL” sign to confirm you are in the right place.

 photo DLPD1 96_zpsiomfahrw.jpg

As mentioned in my Intro/Trip Planning post, our ride into Central London with Blackberry Cars went really smoothly. The driver was friendly, professional and conscientious. Check-in at St. Martin’s Lane Hotel was also very easy. Our room was just as advertised, with a rooftop view of the buildings on the lane, including the English National Opera. One of my fondest memories of living in London is hearing a soprano practicing the “Queen of the Night” aria from The Magic Flute as I brushed my teeth in the little apartment I used to stay in next door.

 photo St-Martins-Lane-Hotel_zpsuohsrohm.jpg

 photo DLPD1 14_zps3dur0mpp.jpg

St. Martin-in-the-Field’s Church (left) and The Coliseum, home of the English National Opera (right)

 photo DLPD1 16_zpseoehfg64.jpg

The only bummer about our room was that it had those awful mini blinds sandwiched between the panes of glass. Which means that the broken ones in the window on the far right will never open again.

 photo DLPD1 2_zpsad22tpqm.jpg

 photo DLPD1 7_zpsy91vwzcs.jpg

I feel like they need a big honkin’ painting here. Or at least one other plant!

 photo DLPD1 9_zps7zexrnfl.jpg

You can change the hue of the mood lighting… but you prolly never will…

 photo DLPD1 10_zpsphrzs5l7.jpg

 photo DLPD1 11_zpsadrgsmga.jpg

 photo DLPD1 12_zpsbtwnf1gb.jpg

 photo DLPD1 13_zpsgrojh3ue.jpg

Again, this place was super-boring but super-convenient to anything you’d want to do in Central London, with a nice King-sized bed, strong water pressure and huge fluffy towels. What more could you want?

We had some time to kill before our evening tour, so we popped around the corner to Covent Garden. Except for the absence of my beloved LUSH store, it was exactly as I remembered it!

 photo DLPD1 17_zpsxwxuqqgw.jpg

 photo DLPD1 19_zpszgonuegw.jpg

 

 photo DLPD1 20_zpscamkbazb.jpg

We probably should’ve eaten at the Punch & Judy pub, on account of Patrick’s a puppeteer and his business is named after the noisemaker used in Punch & Judy shows, but… it was a dark, stuffy, crowded cave of a place! So we ended up in a light, stuffy cave of a French restaurant on the subterranean level you can almost see in this shot…

 photo DLPD1 18_zpsgrvyoapw.jpg

I promise, this was one of only two meals we didn’t photograph. You aren’t missing much, though.

 photo DLPD1 21_zpsuhi3h7qx.jpg

 photo DLPD1 22_zpsslamazoy.jpg

Obligatory Red Phone Box Photo ™

After dinner we spent an inordinate amount of time in an Apple Store, of all places, because it was full of things for Patrick to practice photographing…

 photo DLPD1 23_zpsivknvppw.jpg

You have to admit, it IS way cooler than most mall Apple Stores!

 photo DLPD1 25_zpsowadzbt4.jpg

 photo DLPD1 27_zps4bf0kdcy.jpg

 photo DLPD1 26_zpspjeze6mm.jpg

Back out on New Row, the lane leading to our hotel, we spotted the first of about a bazillion gelaterias in the UK. No ice cream shops, just gelaterias…

 photo DLPD1 28_zpsqqxhaoas.jpg

 photo DLPD1 32_zps82d7ydcm.jpg

 photo DLPD1 30_zpsvpekebal.jpg

 photo DLPD1 31_zpsmutuwhgg.jpg

Patrick got this:

 photo DLPD1 33_zpsc3sxejyv.jpg

I got an affogato in an ice cream cone made with hot chocolate instead of coffee and it was GOOD! Usually I’m kind of indifferent to gelato, mostly because “inclusions” like peanut butter cups or cookie dough are my favorite part, and gelato never seems to have those. But dumping hot chocolate on gelato makes it a million times more interesting! And a million times hotter! (I may have permanently singed the roof of my mouth—I blame the straw, a.k.a., “The Devil’s Rapid Delivery System.”)

 photo DLPD1 34_zpstyhwltk1.jpg

 photo DLPD1 29_zpswb6jtnxr.jpg

 photo DLPD1 1_zpsdbf70hu9.jpg

Happy as a clam! Or in London maybe it’s a kipper… Happy as a kipper!

When we got back to our room, they had delivered the anniversary dessert I’d requested.

 photo DLPD1 35_zpsqzvczkua.jpg

You can either pay to order a custom cake starting at £50 or you can have this thing for free. They said it was going to be a chocolate cake, but what we actually got was scientifically engineered to repell me: Coffee-flavored cake with hazelnuts, white chocolate AND raspberries. Four awful tastes that taste awful together! But, hey… at least it was FREE awful cake!

Our evening tour was a last-minute addition to the trip. I realized I’d planned all these forays to interesting London sites without any kind of overview of the town to acclimate Patrick on his first trip. I thought about doing one of the open-top bus tours that depart from Green Park, but then I started getting stressed out about how best to get there, whether we’d make the scheduled departure time, and whether we’d be too cold. I fell back on “It’s our 10th anniversary!” as an excuse to book a private tour guide who would meet us at our hotel.

I chose London Tours By Taxi for its hundreds of great reviews on TripAdvisor, and we were not disappointed. Initially I was a bit worried about being jet-lagged from the flight and not being able to see much in the dark, but this proved to be the ideal introduction to the city. The owner, Adrian, is a licensed Black Cab driver who shares the perfect mix of historical info, anecdotes and personal opinion to make the city come alive for visitors. For the rest of the trip, we kept saying we wished we’d had Adrian to give us an overview of the other cities we visited too.

We were able to get the lay of the land, covering a lot of ground in just three hours, including stops to explore certain sites on foot. Knowing we were movie buffs, Adrian shared stories of the filming he’d seen around town and pointed out movie locations that might interest us—like the façade they use for the entrance to Carleton House on The Crown and the place where Tom Cruise sprained his ankle making Mission Impossible XVIII: The ‘Splosioning.

He also set us up with a good understanding of London’s past and present, as well as its people. Many times during the rest of our stay we’d find ourselves referring to something Adrian told us that allowed us to appreciate what we were seeing even more.

One of the first places Adrian took us was this cool community garden in the remains of Christchurch Greyfriars Church. There’s been a church here since 1225, but the one you see was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1687 to replace the church that burned during the Great Fire of London. This church also burned, but not until 1940, during World War II.

Apparently there is one apartment in the tower, and it just sold for a couple million pounds!

 photo DLPD1 44_zpsgb0zscur.jpg

 photo DLPD1 42_zpsmfx2p9fk.jpg

 photo DLPD1 47_zpszovyws0l.jpg

 photo DLPD1 46_zpspn1xl5gr.jpg

 photo DLPD1 45_zpskbjqmyph.jpg

 photo DLPD1 48_zps6clbyoji.jpg

 

Patrick fell in love with the Staple Inn in Holborn, one of the only Elizabethan buildings to survive the Great Fire of London (although it was bombed by the Nazis in 1944 and had to be extensively restored). If you like it too, don’t worry—you’ll be seeing a lot more of it in a later installment!

 photo DLPD1 38_zpsvwtzpb7w.jpg

 

Adrian pointed out one of the shops where judges and barristers get their robes and wigs.

 photo DLPD1 37_zpszn2llomb.jpg

Adrian pulled over near the Tower Hill tube stop so we could check out a unique three-fer: The new, almost novelty-shaped towers rising in London’s skyline, the Tower of London, and a portion of the Roman wall that originally surrounded the city.

 photo DLPD1 68_zpsow5li4iq.jpg

 photo DLPD1 67_zpsjxh8n5tn.jpg

Apparently there are (or are being built) buildings resembling a gherkin, a scalpel, a shard, a cheese grater and a walkie talkie! I think the one under construction here might be the scalpel…

 photo DLPD1 66_zpsvpqnttbq.jpg

 photo DLPD1 58_zpstgzhyoml.jpg

What would the Londoners of 500 years ago think of the nefarious Tower of London with a little fence around it and a traffic light!

 photo DLPD1 60_zpsu8xxtgvq.jpg

Then Patrick had an acid trip…

 photo DLPD1 65_zpsexgordhs.jpg

 photo DLPD1 69_zpstm4f7bbc.jpg

Portion of the Roman wall

We had to skirt numerous other tour groups at this portion of the wall that night. It’s such a fascinating juxtaposition between old and new, right in the bustling heart of a modern city!

 photo DLPD1 51_zpsgomydy1p.jpg

 photo DLPD1 55_zpshhudtpsk.jpg

 photo DLPD1 57_zps5crpf2hr.jpg

 photo DLPD1 56_zpsl7rbccgz.jpg

Adrian pointed out where the oldest level  of the wall stopped and the newer one started atop it.
 photo DLPD1 52_zpslokdart1.jpg

 photo DLPD1 54_zpsqohf925v.jpg

 

Then it was off to….

 photo DLPD1 70_zpsaemw0s8s.jpg

Which is NOT this bridge!

 photo DLPD1 76_zpsj03zvavr.jpg

Apparently tourists (stupid, stupid tourists…) think that the attractive and old timey Tower Bridge (above) is the London Bridge. The current London Bridge is a dowdy structure built in 1973 to replace the 1831 London Bridge, which every American will proudly tell you now resides in Lake Havasu, Arizona! (Apparently it is not true that the millionaire oilman who bought it thought he was getting the far more impressive Tower Bridge). But London Bridge is a great place from which to photograph Tower Bridge and the Thames.

 photo DLPD1 73_zpsfgc8ucwh.jpg

 photo DLPD1 71_zpspw5tbzom.jpg

 photo DLPD1 77_zpspiidzgwf.jpg

The Shard!

 photo DLPD1 79_zpsanhijr2b.jpg

The London Eye, Brought to You By Coca-Cola! For real!

One kind of big bummer on our trip was that Big Ben was completely covered by scaffolding and almost totally out of focus!

 photo DLPD1 83_zpsufcvzapx.jpg

The Houses of Parliament were also a bit under construction and out of focus…

 photo DLPD1 80_zpsbpbhrgzf.jpg

One of our last stops was Westminster Abbey, the exterior of which you will see in 89,945 photos in the next installment.
 photo DLPD1 86_zpsvn8tfkv5.jpg

This could have been us…

 photo DLPD1 85_zps9pnqaajo.jpg

“OnyourrightisWestminsterAbbeylastrestingplaceofkingsqueenspoetsandplaywrightsNextstopBigBen!!!”

Patrick, who is an avowed lover of Brutalist architecture, was captivated by the blight-y Queen Elizabeth II Center, across the street from Westminster Abbey. Adrian said that everybody in London hates the building because it replaced a nice-looking older building, and they were thrilled to hear it was going to be demolished. But then the renovation of the Houses of Parliament could be postponed no longer, and suddenly they needed a place to stick a bunch of the parliamentarians, so now they’re all holed up in the QE2 Building and the demolition has been pushed back indefinitely.

It’s actually not so bad looking when it’s all lit up at night, though!

 photo DLPD1 89_zpsdl4ksdfl.jpg

 photo DLPD1 88_zpslwsmlghp.jpg

“OK, it’s listing! NOW can we demolish it?”

Our last stop was a quick buzz by Buckingham Palace, which will also be thoroughly photographed in the next installment.

 photo DLPD1 92_zpsplg34e13.jpg

The absence of the Royal Standard on the flagpole means The Queen (and, more importantly, her corgis) is not in residence.

 photo DLPD1 91_zpst39x6ug5.jpg

 photo DLPD1 93_zpsabhvjezl.jpg

Up Next: Westminster Abbey, Harrod’s & a Tour of Buckingham Palace!

9 Responses
  • Claire aka Chilly
    April 6, 2018

    Yes M&S is an off shoot of Marks and Spencer and the food now makes them more money than clothes.

    • Carrie
      April 6, 2018

      Whoa! That’s crazy! Thanks for the info!

  • Allison
    March 30, 2018

    1) Your “and then Patrick had an acid trip” almost made me snort laugh out loud but I’m at work and restrained myself to silent giggles that kept sneaking up on me each time I thought about it again.

    2) Because of my love for everything you do I will ignore your mean comments about my most favorite berry in the whole wide world – possibly my most favorite flavor really – LOL

    • Carrie
      March 31, 2018

      I wish I’d known—I coulda boxed that cake up and sent it off to you so the hotel would never know we didn’t eat it! Be prepared to receive all my raspberry-flavored gifts in the future. Mum’s the word!

  • Katie
    March 6, 2018

    Hilarious as always. As soon as I saw those raspberries I knew it would mean trouble lol! Looking forward to the next installment.

    • Carrie
      March 6, 2018

      LOL! I’m pretty predicatable!

  • Mama Eileen
    March 6, 2018

    Good morning Carrie.
    Your flight meal comments made me laugh out loud!
    I’m really impressed with Patrick’s pictures. Was he using flash or some special setting? The first picture of the Christchurch… looks haunted. Night and indoor photos are really challenging for me.
    Patrick has seen the London Bridge at Lake Havasu when he was 13 months old.
    I had to look up Brutalist Architecture. I know what you are talking about now.
    As always, I love reading your trip reports!
    PS – what flavor gelato are you guys eating?

    • Carrie
      March 6, 2018

      Hi Moma! Patrick doesn’t like to use flash. He was playing around with the aperature and ISO to get those night shots. They are kinda spooky! I think we both got Honey-flavored gelato, but Patrick can’t remember what his second flavor was. Prolly something weird! He loves weird flavors… I will let him know that he has already seen London Bridge!

What do you think?

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.