Tubing, canals, busses and more

Tube-ing it.
Our Warwick Avenue Underground Station is our portal to the city. Even with a train change anywhere in London is minutes from our Little Venice neighborhood by “TUBE” as they call it. The Brits really know how to make a transportation system that works. Double Decker busses are everywhere and Tube stations dot the city. Easy to navigate, fast and efficient.

After 3 days of exploring the heart of the city and its institutions, we finally walk around our neighborhood, Little Venice. So named because of the houseboats that line the canals. They are beautiful, thin and long and many have amusing names. An occasional tour boat slowly makes it way down the canal and picturesque transportation to other neighborhoods is available by boat too.


After bidding his friend Alex who is off to France ahead of Jake, goodbye, we three (Velvis is under the weather) head for the British Museum, thinking incorrectly that it being Easter Sunday, most of London would be home searching for eggs. WRONG! The “museum of the world, for the world” was full of people as awed as we were. You can't see it all in a day or even several. We take in Ancient Egypt and Rome for starters and then roamed a little. Jake got to handle a 1.5 to 2 million year old hand ax.
I spent a lot of time studying the amazing glass roof that soars over it all and have the photos to prove it.
In the morning we're up early packing. Jake is off to France and we take the train to Newcastle after finally getting a couple of Velvis pix.

KEEP CALM and CARRY ON*

April 3rd – Halle
KEEP CALM and CARRY ON*
Cautiously upright Rick and I leave the flat and head for Portobello Market while the boys (now 3 in total) sleep in. It feels like a happening that we missed 35 years ago, and we are swept up for a few blocks before we find space in a cafe for my first tentative meal on my tender tummy.

Great people watching at Portobello Market

The boys are awake and we meet them at Westminster Abbey. We'd attempted a couple of days before
but it closed earlier than stated in our guide book. I have since vowed to never buy a used guide book again no matter how good a bargain. Jake's main goal at the Abbey was to find Chaucer's tomb in the Poets' Corner. We were surrounded by throngs of Easter tourists but we plodded through impressed with the architecture and mix of history and religion and the many literary figures who are laid to rest.

Alex, Nick and Jake off to the races
The boys decided to drift off to the Oxford/Cambridge regatta and missed the race by minutes. (Sadly, Oxford lost.) They still had fun celebrating the rest of the night. Rick and I toured the Churchill Museum and the Cabinet War Rooms. Both are a fantastic addition to UK history and well presented. We then went in search for a bottle of scotch left for us by our friends Kathy and John at their posh hotel. Needless to say the staff “couldn't find” our gift but we enjoyed the lobby art.

Two friendly ambulance motorcycle drivers pause to direct us. When asked how they carried victims, one said "Well, the head goes in here, and ...."

*KEEP CALM and CARRY ON was a propaganda poster produced by the British government in 1939 during the beginning of World War II, but never used.

Velvis speaks out

Velvis – April 2nd
MMMMMPHHH – what the 'ell? This is “Tripping with Velvis” and these stiffs 'aven't taken me out of the tube yet. IT'S STUFFY IN 'ERE!

London at last

Our first full day in London, it's the National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery, pick up Jake at Victoria Station and then Spanish Tapas, Sangria and a walk to the Tate Museum. The museums are all great. The weather, not so much. It changes from minute to minute. I watch Halle take the sunglasses, jackets, etc. off and on so often, it makes me dizzy, but mostly it was cold, cold, cold.

The museums are huge so we didn't come close to seeing everything but especially liked the Irving Penn exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. Jake enjoyed walking through the David Hockney village at the Tate.

That evening we laughed our way through Avenue Q in Leicester Square. Unfortunately, Halle starts to feel quesy on the tube on the way back to our apartment.

Oh hell, it happens on every international trip. After weeks of planning, several days of intense pre-trip finishing up work, making arrangements, shopping, packing, getting behind and finally reaching near panic that it won't all get done, you awake with a start and realize you are actually on your way. This moment comes in that special purgatory known as International Air Travel when you're jolted awake from your first short nap by a drink cart bumping your shoulder. It's exhilaration mixed with discomfort, a little dehydration and near complete exhaustion.

But the moment passes and we are really on our way. Halle, Velvis and me … off to England.

Not much sleep on the 18 hour trip so after a train from Heathrow and a cab ride, we arrive at our rented 2 bedroom apartment in Kensington near the Warwich Ave. underground station on the Bakerloo line, tired, disheveled and immediately irritated. The master bedroom is icy cold, the internet, radio and TV aren't working but everything else is fine if a little quirky.

Nice lunch at a French Bistro in the neighborhood, a long nap and the world is a little brighter. A charming Irish maintenance man named Martin brings a heater for the bedroom and gets a couple of things straightened out, dinner at a Thai restaurant a full nights sleep in the only warm bedroom and we're ready for action.