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JULY 13, 2003
It took about1.5 hours to get to Kevin's flat on the underground. He was off on a business trip in Munich, so we got the keys from the office and let ourselves into the flat. It is very nice and has a lovely balcony overlooking a beautiful view of the Thames. He lives out in the Limehouse Docklands. He had told us to help ourselves, and had left food for us and had our box from Susan and some other things I had sent over back in January waiting for us. It is so nice to be here. It's clean, we have good food, a TV, and a computer. We can do our laundry and we can even brush our teeth with the tap water (no filtering).
Shari and relaxed, napped, watched TV and then went to the grocery store and picked up a pizza for dinner. Kevin got home about 11:30PM and we visited for a while. It was great to see him.
6/06: I had a whole list of questions that I went over with Kevin this morning before he left for work (location of stores, how to use the cell phone, washing machine, stove, info on tickets for the underground, etc). We then had a low-key day using the computer, organizing gear, etc.
Kevin came home about 5:30PM and we sat and had wine and talked until about 7:30. Then Kevin and I went down to a bar on West India Quay to meet Keith Hallman and his girfriend Shana for drinks. How different to be in a bar in London than a rural village in Nepal. I stayed for 2 beers and then took the tube (underground) back to Limehouse Station, got a sandwich and chips for dinner and came home to Kevin's where Shari was watching TV.
I slept on the sofa and Kevin came in about 4AM so we talked for about an hour while he ate some dinner and told me about his evening.
6/07: Shari and I headed out about 10AM to do errands. She mailed some things home at the post office and then we bought an all day tube pass and headed off to a store called ASDA (that is owned by Wal-Mart). Next, we headed to Bond Street where we did lots of miscellaneous shopping. It was a great day getting on and off the tube, doing our shopping and getting somewhat oriented to the various areas of London. We got all our shopping done today so we can just do sightseeing tomorrow. We didn't get back to Kevin's until almost 7PM. We never really sat down today, and I think I walked more today in London than on some of our trekking days in Nepal.
6/08: Another walking day. We left Kevin's about 10:30 to walk along the Thames up to Tower Bridge where we crossed the bridge and then walked along the other side of the river up to the Globe Theatre. We then crossed the river again at London Bridge, walked around the area at St.Paul's, then onto Tower Hill and back along the river to Kevin's. We got back about 5:30, so we had another long day orienting ourselves to the areas of interest along the Thames.
We just hung out with Kevin for the evening - watching TV and using the computer. About 10:15, we decided to go to Limehouse Station and wait for Richard in hope he got on his standby flight from Boston this morning. We waited until after midnight but no luck, so we hoped he would be able to get on the evening flight and arrive in the morning.
6/09: Richard called about 7AM to say he had just landed at Heathrow. Unfortunately, his bag was not on the flight so he was going to wait for the next flight (which was due in shortly) to see if his bag was on that plane. He finally arrived at Kevin's about 10:30 with no bag. The airline said it would be on tonight's flight and they would deliver it tomorrow morning. We hope it gets here early because we want to leave for Edinburgh tomorrow.
Richard had about 3 hours sleep in the last 2 days so he had something to eat and then went to lay down. Shari and I just spent the afternoon reading and checking out places to visit in London and England when we return from Scotland and our Coast to Coast walk. I think it is going to take us a while to figure out how to use our rail passes for the trains in Britain and Europe. We checked out the Eurail website but it's pretty confusing to get train schedules, locations, and when we will need to pay extra money for seat reservations versus when we don't.
We also booked our flight to Oslo via Ryan Air for July 14th. The only problem is Ryan Air flies out of Stansted Airport in London and lands at Torp Airport in Norway. It will take at least 2.5 hours to get from Torp Airport to Oslo, which means we may get to the hostel in Oslo kind of late. Some places only let you in before certain hours so I sent them an email giving an approximate arrival time and asking if we could make a reservation. If they say no, Shari and I might just end up sleeping in the train station.
I think the trains will be fine once we figure out how to efficiently use our rail passes, but it may be a painfiul learning process. Oh well, that's part of our adventure.
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