10/09/2005

London Trip, Friday 9/30 -- Bohemian and Artsy London

At the top of my "Must Do List" for this trip was to check out the Soho/West End area. We started out at Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery and then headed over to Leicester Square, Picadilly Circus, Chinatown and Soho...



  • Why do I love Underground Trains so much? Every city has a different name for it. In London, it's called the Tube. I'm sure that if I had to take it every day and experience more of the delays and sardine-packed, rush hour madness, I might lose some of my fascination. But I just love being able to just hop on and off the train and get somewhere so quickly.... You can probably figure out that I'm not a long, cross-country, road trip kind of girl..
  • Art Beyond the Textbook... First stop. Trafalgar Square which is home of none other than the National Gallery. No longer am I spitting it out as a location on an art exam, I am actually here. Tingles up and down my spine. In consideration of my less enthusiastic companions and because I was only in London for 10 days, I opted to hit only the highlights of each wing in the Gallery, which was actually ok with me since my real love is 20th century art.
  • Share some more of that Bohemian flavor, please...On to Leicester Square, Soho, The West End and Chinatown to soak up one of the most colorful, hip parts of London. Lots of shops, restaurants and clubs... including, of course, adult entertainment clubs and shops (straight and gay).

Chinatown in all its bustling lights and glory!!

  • American Franchise? No Thank you. As we passed all the Burger Kings and Pizza Huts today, I couldn't help but think back to my first visit to the UK as a teenager. I was disappointed and impatient with my fellow adolescent companions because here we we were in Scotland, and by day 2, all they wanted to do was to find a Burger King. Then they complained that the burgers and fries just weren't the same as they were in America. Sigh...
  • British Fiction Moment: Though I was armed with an electrical adapter, I did not have the right voltage transformer for my hair straightener. Live without it? Oh no. I took the opportunity to go to Boots (drugstore) and purchase a Nicky Clarke hair straightener. (store and brand from Confessions of a Shopaholic)

London Trip, Thursday 9/29 -- Hello London!!

  • Does it really pay to be prepared? When it comes to packing, I've always been more of a happy-go-lucky, throw it all together at the last minute kind of a girl. This time I was highly organized and was almost all packed, 4 days in advance. I'd like to say that it made things much more relaxed and stress-free, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Every night, I'd compare the same list and contents of my bags all over again. I was constantly wondering if I forgot something until the night before I left.
  • I think I know what it feels like to be a baby. Either a baby or a pig in a pen, that is... It's been a long time since I've flown a flight that isn't domestic or within the N. American continent. I'm so used to having just the small bag of pretzels, somewhere in the middle of the flight. I took an overnight flight into Gatwick so I tried to spend as much of the nine hours sleeping. But with the two meals, a snack and several beverages services, it was just a constant cycle of sleeping and eating. In London, we tried to stay up for the rest of the day, but eventually succumbed to taking a nap from lunch until dinner. Oink, oink.

A good cab driver is the best tour guide. You get a sense of the real life behind the tourist scene. Cabs in London are so cute (see picture below) and most of the drivers we saw were retired men.

  • London living is not for the super claustrophobic. Our hotel (above) was clean and accomadating, but very, very small. It's not in the most posh area, but it is next to Hoxton Square, a hip and funky area where lots of young people congregate in the newly refurbished pubs and restaurants.

  • British Terminology:

Toilets = Restrooms

Lifts = Elevators

Having visited the UK before and having read all those British novels, I thought I knew a lot of the terminology, but every day, I still learned more...

10/08/2005

I just flew in from London this afternoon and am trying to stay up until a little later so I can get back adjusted to Texas time. It's 7pm here and 1 am in London so forgive me if I'm a little loopy. Originally, I thought that there would be an internet connection included in the hotel room rates and I'd really have time to write about my trip everyday, but it didn't quite work out. But I did write all my thoughts on paper so that I can transfer them over... So my next several postings will be a little different from my usual and will be about my trip. Don't worry, it will not be a laboriously detailed "what I did today" account. At least I don't think it will be.

Anyway, London was "just brilliant", as the Londoners might say. In addition to my natural travel high, I love any chance to feel the pulsating vibe of an ultra-urban city. Every time I first step into it, I'm swept away with that familiar rush and then I question why I always choose my suburban lifestyle.

An ideal visit to any new city for me consists of as much local flavour (might as well keep the spellings authentically British) as possible and I think we did a pretty good job. Sure, I spent a day doing the whole "Royal London" thing, but I can't say that it was my favo(u)rite part. In fact, I read a lot of modern, British fiction (Sophia Kinsella, Marian Keyes, etc.) and couldn't wait to discover all of the ordinary, day-to-day things I read about. In my daily installments, I'll be making note some of that.

But without fail, after a week or so, I remember why I am a Dallas girl. I love my car and my driveway and frankly... my space. In this case, even as sad as I was to leave, I couldn't stop smiling as the plane landed with the sunny, open skies above.

Stay tuned...