Tom Arrives: London Sightseeing.
Up and at ’em. On the underground by 8 en route to meet Tom at Heathrow, whose flight it turns out actually landed about 30 minutes early. Got to Terminal 2 just at the right time, as I got there just as Tom sort of flew through immigration and customs and emerged into the airport. Back onto the Piccadilly lines and to Oakwood station, where we were greeted by Claudio, and whisked to their apartment, arriving around noon-ish, I think.
I did wonder how well Tom would fit into Claudio and Hilary’s small Fiat… but Tom is foldable, it turns out, and fit in just fine, with a few inches to spare! Turns out, one of Tom’s early cars was a VW Bug, so he’s been squeezing into tight spaces for a while now.
It’s always nice to see my friends mixing with other friends of mine, and Tom meeting Hil and Claudio. I wasn’t sure how Tom would feel after a long overnight flight from Denver to London, without getting much sleep, but he was feeling fine. I wondered if he might first like a nap before deciding how to spend the rest of day, but he was ready to hit the streets of London, so off we went. Hilary, but probably not Claudio, will join us in our sightseeing endeavors in the next couple of days, but not this afternoon.
So, of we went. I’ll abbreviate the day, and say simply I possibly/probably exhausted Tom after already having had such a long day of it after a long all night flight, plus the heat and humidity was really pretty draining. It was hot all day, and hit 93 degrees F by mid-late afternoon (somehow, the hottest part of the day is late afternoon, and not around noon, as you might expect).
We took a couple of buses to the West End, but given the amount of traffic, and the number of stops, that was a long journey, passing through North Finchley, Finchley Central, and then onto Finchley Road, through Swiss Cottage and St. John’s Wood, running along Baker Street, and finally eventually reaching Oxford Street, not far from Marble Arch. The upper deck front seats on the bus, usually the best seats in the house, were simply too hot, and the large windows only amplified the heat, so we took seats further back (not as good a view), but Tom certainly got to see lots of everyday normal England, and the changing architecture as we wended out way to the West End. In the St. John’s Wood area, flats in some of the large apartment buildings along the the way, in beautiful buildings between 80 and close to 200 years old, range in price, starting near or just above a million-plus dollars, and getting more expensing from there. The average property value sits around 2½ million dollars, a town house can cost in excess of ten million dollars. Well, I’m not moving there.
From Selfridges on Oxford Street, We headed past Marble Arch to Hyde Park, where the grass, where there is any is yellow from the heat, and there are large fields that have no grass at all, and are just dry soil, although it may be they’re being re-seeded. Still, it was sad, and I;’ve certainly never seen the usually green Royal parks looking for un-green (even though the rose gardens were lovely, so they must be getting watered), and first grabbed something to eat at a cafe in the park, by the serpentine. Fish and chips, which Tom wanted, but I insisted that, although good, restuarant fish and chips just aren’t the same as chip shop fish and chips.
Then, in the hot and humid weather, I dragged Tom, still hanging in there, on a roundabout walk from Hyde Park to Piccadilly Circus, although he was finally starting to fatigue after being awake for so many hours since yesterday, not to mention the debilitating effect of the heat and humidity, saying if we go past such-and-such it’s just another 10 minutes. But we did finally reach Piccadilly Circus and the welcoming statue of Eros, visiting Buckingham Palace, the Mall and Pall Mall, St, James Palace, Trafalgar Square, St. Martins-in-the-Field, and Leicester Square along the way.
Then, finally, ready to go home, we took the very, very, very crowded rush hour underground to Finsbury Park, where we transferred to the main line railway to New Barnet station, and walked the few minutes to Hilary and Claudio’s, and almost immediately grabbed Tom’s baggage and Claudio drove us the few minutes to the Barrington pub and hotel up on the main street.
I decided to stay with Hil and Claudia for the next couple of nights and leave the room to Tom, instead of either shifting to a different room with smaller beds but two of them or sleeping on bedding on the floor (which I don’t mind at all, as long as I have something padded to sleep on). Their flat is just a ten minute walk away. I left Tom to get settled and headed back to the flat, hung out, talked, watched TV (an interesting piece on film noir), and to bed. Tomorrow, more London.