London 2016 - Days 4 & 5 (12/27/2016 & 12/28/2016) - Solo Jaunt

I slept later yet again this morning, making it until 5:30.  Brad left for the airport at 6:30, leaving me with a day on my own in London.  I left the hotel at 8:40am, aiming to make it by foot to the Tower of London sometime around the 9am opening.  I was there around 9:10, and the lines were still short (which was not the case when I left a couple of hours later).  The tower experience was OK, so I didn't feel too bad about skipping out on it the first time I was in London 11 years ago.  I gave up on the audio guide after a while because I wasn't all that interested.  I also decided that I find the idea of crown jewels (and a monarchy in general) garish and outdated; I'm not sure how much my annoyance at the queue to see the jewels played into this decision.


From the tower I took the tube to Westminster.  I first went in search of something fast, open, and peculiar to London for lunch, but settled for Subway after finding 2 Itsu locations closed.  I then walked back to Westminster Abbey to (stand in line and then) do the audio tour.  I liked the cathedral, but not as much as St. Paul's.


Afterward I had about 1.5 hours to kill before heading for my 3:30pm Up at The O2 (UATO2) appointment.  This wasn't enough time to check out the Imperial War Museum, which had been my original plan (though I wasn't too torn up about it since I probably had enough battle artifacts from the Tower of London Armory).  After finding the ticket office for the houses of parliament closed, I took the tube over to Canary Wharf to check out the Crossrail Place building (which I had seen on some TV program) and its roof garden.


After that I took the Jubilee line one more stop over to North Greenwich, arriving at UATO2 right at the suggested 15 minutes prior (though that earliness was cancelled out by an inability to access my ticket barcode due to lack of an Internet connection - it eventually got sorted, though it should have been much easier than it was).  Overall the climb was probably worthwhile.  It wasn't as strenuous as the advertising would have you believe (I guess they're trying to CYA for couch potatoes), but the last part of the descent did get a little slippery for some people.  The view up top would also be much better if it were closer to central London.

After the climb I had a quick dinner at Square Pie in the O2, then took the Underground back to the hotel.  My length and quality of sleep improved even more that night, just in time for me to depart back to Seattle the next morning.  I was fortunate enough to get business class again for the return flight, with less worrying in the run-up this time.

London 2016 - Day 3 (12/26/2016) - Come on ya Gunners!

I slept a little later this morning - made it to 3 or 4 before not being able to sleep anymore.  We left the hotel at 10:15 and then walked across the Millennium Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral.  Brad didn't think it would be worth paying to enter, so we went on a walkabout while I went in and did the highlights audio tour, and then the stair climb to the top gallery on the outside of the dome.  I was more impressed with the building than I expected to be - the architecture/design, the ability to explore a lot of it, the view outside from the top, the crypt, etc.  I eventually made my way to the designated meeting point around 12:45, 15 minutes late.


From there we found another Thai restaurant to have lunch and then took the tube to Emirates Stadium.  Brad did not get a ticket to the match ahead of time (whereas I had bought an Arsenal membership just to get access to a ticket for the match), and thought that he might be able to scrounge one up at the stadium.  He passed on picking one up on the street and instead chose to stand in line at the box office.  This is where I left him to go find my seat before the match started.  I later found out that they ran out of tickets before he made his way to the window, and had done a bit of wandering and eating while I was spectating.  Arsenal managed to squeeze out a 1-0 victory with an 86th minute goal after dominating possession and chances throughout.


After meeting back up we took the Underground back to Southwark and found dinner at a Turkish place named Tas - the vegetarian moussaka was quite good.

London 2016 - Day 2 (12/25/2016) - Biking Around London on Christmas

I was asleep by 9pm the night before, and slept deeply until right at 2am.  But then I was wide away for the next 4 or 5 hours.  The jet lag did something similar to me each of the next 2 nights.  I did manage to drift in and out of some half-sleep for a few hours before Brad arose at 11am - he handled the time change much better than I did, getting a good long sleep in.  We weren't in any particular hurry because most of the city, including public transit, was shut down for Christmas.  We lazed around the room for a while (breakfast consisted of some makeshift items we had picked up at a Coop convenience store the night before), finally leaving around 2pm.

We had a light late lunch at an EAT. shop on the south end of the London Bridge, then rented some bikes for a couple of hours.  This ended up being a really good idea (credit goes to Brad) despite my not having ridden a bike in something like 8 years.  The bike rental stands are plentiful in the city, and the car traffic was significantly reduced due to the holiday - which made it less scary for me.  I will say, though, that there were still quite a good number of tourists milling around town even though almost nothing was open.


We rode over and crossed the Thames on the Tower Bridge (on foot because there was no bike lane, and I was till getting re-familiarized with riding).  From there we rode north to the Gherkin building, then back down and west along the north bank of the Thames via a Quietway route (which are a great way to avoid car traffic - more cities should do something like this).  We crossed back over the river at the Westminster Bridge, then made our way toward a pub called The Anchor - the hotel staff had mentioned that it was one of the few places that is open on Christmas.  By the time we returned the bikes and made it to the pub, it was only open for 15 more minutes.  Brad grabbed a quick beer and then we walked back to the hotel and ate dinner at the restaurant there.

London 2016 - Days 0 & 1 (12/23/2016 & 12/24/2016) - Seattle to London

The idea for this trip started when during his visit to Seattle this autumn Brad Schwartz mentioned that (a) Delta, his employer, has nonstop flights between Seattle and London; (b) he was willing to give me a buddy pass on Delta (a significantly reduced fare where I would fly standby, but be booked for business class).  He thought that my chances of getting business class during this time of year (off-peak) would be pretty good.  Combined with my desire to see an Arsenal match, and the holiday break from work, I had to give it a shot.  I made plans to attend the Arsenal Boxing Day match against West Brom, and about a week prior to the trip Brad decided that he was going to join me in London after all (a possibility that he had been considering ever since the subject was broached).

The seat status on the flight looked good for me right up until a couple of days before the trip.  A Virgin Atlantic pilot strike caused some additional bookings on the flight (Brad wasn't sure how legit they were), and then a few Delta employees registered standby (and thus ahead of me on the list) the day before.  Brad was a lot more worried than I was (and even drew up contingency plans), even though he had his own routing issued to deal with for his trip to London from Atlanta - he gave me a 90% chance of getting on the flight and a 20% chance of getting business class.  In the end, I got both, with one person below me on the upgrade list, and one business class seat to spare after everyone was given a seat (along with 6 remaining seats in economy).

On the slight downside, I was one of the last to get on the plane because they were still sorting out the standby situation when boarding began.  This resulted in the vegetarian main course not being available when the flight attendant got around to taking my order.  I "made do" with just the appetizer salad, the string beans from the chicken option, and chocolate lava cake with ice cream for dessert - first world problems.

My flight left in the evening of the 23rd and arrived on the afternoon of the 24th.  Brad beat me there by an hour or so - he transited via Amsterdam form Atlanta.  After meeting up at the arrival area (we had very fortunate timing with him coming over to my terminal just as I was leaving customs), we bought a couple of Oyster cards and took the Underground into town.  We were staying at the Hilton London Bankside, which was a few blocks from the Southwark station.

After checking in and dropping off our things, we went for a walkabout.  We crossed the Millennium Bridge and then wandered into Covent Garden.  We were feeling Thai food for dinner, and eventually found one place (Busaba) that was open after three failed attempts - Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Boxing Day would limit our options for the duration of the trip.