Vacation: The Trip to Scotland

We flew direct from Houston to London. During the flight, I watched Season of the Witch with Nicolas Cage, and it was awful - a prime candidate for a bad movie night with a group of friends. I tried sleeping, but it was difficult. The flight was quite rough. Mom said it was the worst flight she had ever been on.

Although one person didn’t find it difficult to sleep. I don't how he could breathe with that blanket wrapped around his head.

Once we arrived in London,

we took the Tube to Euston Station and picked up our train tickets for the trip to Edinburgh. But our train didn’t leave until midnight, and we had almost 12 hours to spend in London.

Since the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton had happened less than a week before our arrival, Mom and I went to Westminster Abbey.

The flowers and trees placed in the church for the wedding were still inside. Pictures aren’t allowed inside the abbey, but I sneaked this one of the trees.

The trees were just as lovely in person as they were on television, but what the TV cameras didn’t really pick up were the flowers. They were subtle and scattered throughout the church in just the right places lending the entire abbey a sense of the outdoors that was not there when we first visited in 2009.

After that visit, we hung around the train station and people-watched for many an hour. Finally the train arrived. We took the Caledonian Sleeper from London to Edinburgh. The hall was tiny.

The room was tiny.

The bathroom was down the hall, and the faucet didn’t work. But after being awake for nearly two days, we slept.

Vacation: London, England Day 5

The last vacation entry. Finally!

Our last day we went to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Neither Mom nor I were really sure what, exactly, we were seeing. And I certainly don't know why the band (the band?) was playing Elton John, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean music!

The ceremony was impressive because traffic was halted about five times. But the biggest shock was that everything took place behind the fence! I thought they stood out in front of the gates. They do in all the movies ... which lie to me.

Once that ended, we went to the National Gallery. We also went to the National Portrait Gallery.

Then we checked out of our hotel and took a taxi to Harmondsworth Village near Heathrow. The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book and now is threatened by the planned expansion of Heathrow Airport.

We stayed at Harmondsworth Hall Guest House. Our room was a good size, and we ate at a nearby pub. The pub wasn't that great, so we bought some snacks at a little shop.

And the next day, we flew home.

Whew! I finally got it all typed up. Thanks for reading along with me.

Vacation: London, England Day 4

We started the day thinking we would buy tickets to see "Dirty Dancing" in the West End. But we decided leaving the theater late at night with several blocks to walk to a Tube station might be iffy.

So, we went to King's Cross Station. Mom waited while I looked for Platform 9¾.

Then, we went to the British Museum. The building is huge, but somehow we had trouble finding it. I think we asked three people - who each gave us different directions - before we found the place. Mom's knees were screaming at her to sit down, so we ate lunch before perusing the exhibits.

Once in the exhibit halls, we saw the Elgin Marbles, the Rosetta Stone and Assyrian Winged Bulls. Mom was enthralled. She loves ancient Egypt and Greece and Rome, so this was a highlight for her. She took lots of pictures.

You can, apparently, take photos in the museum. I only took one. A forlorn-looking statue in the Greek and Roman statue room.

Naturally, I also had to see the exhibit about the Americas.

We also took the world's slowest and smallest elevator up to the top floor to see the Samurai exhibit. I'm not normally claustrophobic but that elevator was about the size of a typical American shower (with bathtub). At one point there were about six or seven of us in there when it stopped at a floor. And then this very loud Englishwoman and her THREE friends climbed onboard the already-crowded elevator! I couldn't believe it.

After we left the museum, Mom and I went back to St. Paul's Cathedral and went to the Evensong service. We waited in seats in the nave and then a group of visitors were led up to sit in the choir seats. The service, which was mostly sung by a boy's choir, was interesting. We had a book and a piece of paper to guide us through the service.

Not being Anglican, I'm not really sure what all was going on, but it was quite nice.

At first, the choir stood behind the high altar and couldn't be seen. Then they sang, and their voices sounded eerie and beautiful floating down the nave of the cathedral in that disembodied manner.

We returned to our hotel after Evensong.

Vacation: London, England Day 3

We took a bit more of the bus tour around London before taking off at Piccadilly Circus. From there we rode the Tube and the train to Hampton Court Palace.

We arrived at the palace on Henry VIII's wedding day to Catherine Parr. We saw them wandering around the halls and grounds throughout the day, and I even managed to attend his "bachelor party."

Inside the palace we toured Henry VIII's apartments and saw his Abraham tapestries.

The tapestries were commissioned in the 1500s and have, of course, faded considerably over time. In one room they had a "Lighting of the Tapestry" display where, using a computer projection, one tapestry is lit to show the bright, vibrant, original colors of the work. With those bright colors, you could really see how tapestries on the wall could help light a room.

We also went through an exhibit about the women in Henry's life. We also saw another exhibit about his younger days when he was married to Katherine of Aragon and friends with Cardinal Wolsey (the original owner of Hampton Court).

Part of Hampton Court Palace was remodeled by Christopher Wren, so the building is almost like two palaces pushed together. Wren planned to tear down the entire Tudor structure and rebuild but, thankfully, was unable to do so. Mom and I preferred the Tudor side. I was fascinated with the chimney designs. Each stack was different.

In the gardens at the palace, we saw two swans swimming in the fountain. People were walking and standing awfully close to those birds. They were eating, and since swans can be quite aggressive, I kept waiting for one of them to attack a visitor. But neither one did.

Then we went to the Maze. I made it all the way to the center without ever getting lost on the way in and on the way out. Yay, me! Mom did not go in the Maze.

We ate lunch in the Tiltyard Cafe at the palace. I had Georgian Spring Soup (kind of like vegetable) and bread. Mom had King's Pie, which she didn't particularly care for.

Our final stop was the Tudor kitchens. Unfortunately, no one was cooking in them that day, but they had fake foods sitting out, so we could see how meals were prepared.

Then we returned to London on the train.

Vacation: London, England Day 2

Day 2 of our time in London began on a bit of a sour note when we discovered that part of the Tube was shut down for weekend maintenance. So, instead of heading directly to the Tower of London, we made our way to St. Paul's Cathedral.

Pictures weren't allowed inside St. Paul's (and the staff made sure people put their cameras in bags), but the cathedral was magnificent. The dome, the memorials on the walls, the statues - all quite stunning. Inside the crypt there were even more graves, including Florence Nightingale. I wish I could have taken a picture of that tomb. She's one of my favorite people.

There was some sort of christening or other ceremony happening in the chapel in the crypt. Because of that, we were unable to see Christopher Wren's tomb.

From St. Paul's, we managed to find a hop-on hop-off tour bus which took us to the Tower of London. This was a highlight for me. I've always wanted to see the Tower. I never really had any interest in seeing the Crown jewels; I was interested in the prison aspect of the Tower's history.

After we walked into the Tower grounds, one of the first things we saw was Traitor's Gate. Amazing!

How many people have come through that gate over the centuries? Can you imagine how terrifying it must have been to see that? To know that you may never walk as a free person again?

The carved graffiti on the walls in some of the prison towers were a powerful reminder of all the people who have been held there over the years. Some prisoners were even able to hire professionals to carve in the plaster for those prisoners - which, admittedly, doesn't seem as though the prisoners were really being punished.

One of the carvings is reputedly that of Lady Jane Grey.

We did go see the Crown jewels, too. They were impressive, but not as impressive as the Romanov jewels I saw several years ago in an exhibit in Houston.

We also saw the famous ravens of the Tower.

And we never had to wait in long lines. We were surprised and thrilled by that.

From the Tower, we went to the dock and rode a tour boat down the Thames to Westminster (included in the bus ticket).

We managed to make it to Westminster just in time to hear Big Ben chime. We called my grandmother, so she could hear the bells, too. Then we went inside Westminster Abbey.

Once again, no photos were allowed inside. And they were having a flower show inside the church - really weird flower displays. Not terribly attractive displays, either.

But Poet's Corner more than made up for the ugly flowers.

After a busy day, we returned to our hotel.

Vacation: London, England Day 1

We arrived by train at Paddington Station. I did not see Paddington Bear, but I forgot to look for him. We grabbed a taxi and headed to our hotel, the Millennium Bailey's.

The room was quite spacious, which was a nice surprise because we thought the room would be tiny. And the hotel was right across the street from a tube station! Really an excellent location and a nice hotel.

Once we dumped our luggage in our room, we hit the tube station to figure out how that was going to work. We put money on an oyster card and climbed on the train to Westminster station.

After arriving at Westminster and walking out of the station, we found ourselves across the street from the Houses of Parliament

and Big Ben.

We also found ourselves in a teeming mass of humanity. I have never heard so many languages spoken in one place in my life, and that includes the United Nations! So many people were there, and it wasn't even the high tourist season yet. I cannot imagine London in July.

We walked across the bridge to the London Eye.

Prepared to wait in a long line, we were amazed that we managed to miss the line. We climbed on and were rewarded with stunning views of London, especially St. Paul's

and Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

After our flight in the Eye, we walked past some protesters in front of Parliament. They wanted to the government to do something about the treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

We walked down the street past No. 10 Downing Street

toward Trafalgar Square and Lord Nelson's Column.

After that we went to the hotel and ate at Kentucky Fried Chicken. I don't understand why KFC doesn't have mashed potatoes outside the United States. I learned this on a vacation in Canada a few years ago. It just doesn't make any sense. I'd understand it in Asia where the potato is not a staple food, but Canada? England? Ridiculous! So, I ate the French fries.