Monday Sept 17 – First Full Day in London

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Hello from London. This is our first full day in London and it marks a significant difference from practically any of our previous vacations (especially cruises). We usually have each day planned and often have tickets for tours or events already purchased. This will be true of the excursions once we get back to cruising. But here in London we have ideas what we want to do, but nothing has been pre-arranged.

That turns out to be a good thing, because Janet was not feeling very well today. Despite all our bragging about the stable voyage on the QM2, Janet actually had felt some movement. The consequence is that last night and today she had trouble getting her “land legs” back again. Also her ankle has been hurting since we walked over to the Hand & Flower last night. We decided to simply stay around the hotel and let her recuperate. But tomorrow we will be off exploring around town.

Anyway, we slept until after 8:00 and went down to the hotel dining room about 9:00 for breakfast. There were several tables of folks who were leaving today for a cruise, so we felt like something of a replacement for them. There were both cold offering (cereal, fruit, pastry, juice, yogurt, etc) and hot offerings (scrambled eggs, sausages, potatoes, toast, tea, etc). So we both found things we liked although Janet didn’t feel like having very much this morning.

Janet spent a lot of the day in the room. David went out to find a place to exchange our “old pounds” for new. He had to go to 4 different banks, but he got them all swapped. The first bank would only swap 20 pounds. The next said “none” and that it could only be done at the Bank of England. The third had a long line so he just left and the fourth converted the rest of them. On the way back to the hotel David passed a grocery store so he brought a few supplies for back in the room. But that took a lot of the rest of the morning.

About 12:00 we both went for a short walk to the coffee shop where David got yesterday’s sandwiches. Janet got a Tuna Melt and a cup of Mocha Coffee and David got Bacon & Cheese. It was good and probably helped Janet’s stomach feel better. Adjacent to that shop is a Hilton Hotel so we went to their concierge to find out more about local London tours. We ended up booking tours for both tomorrow and Wednesday, so we should have more traditional things to report tomorrow.

For the afternoon Janet watched some British TV and then took a nice long nap while David went out for a little walk and to take a few pictures. He found a local laundromat and went back later to get all our remaining dirty clothes cleaned again. This was going to have to happen sometime during our London stay, but now we are good all the way until we board the ship again. The difference is that our perks on the next ship will include free laundry by someone else. So we should be in good shape for clean clothes the rest of the trip.

About 6:00 David went for another short walk to a place called Pizza Express. It is across the street from yesterday’s pub, but there was no reason to challenge Janet’s ankle this evening. We got a “take away” American Pizza (pepperoni, cheese, and tomato sauce) and it was actually pretty tasty. While he was waiting for the pizza to get cooked, David was able to get a pint of beer. Then he brought the pizza back to the hotel and we ate in the breakfast area down by the terrace.

Now we are back in the room for the evening. Janet was able to finish the scarf she has been knitting. She has a personal challenge to get 4 of them done this year and this is her second so this is just one of those milestones being accomplished. It is brown so David likes it. That’s about all for today – see you tomorrow.

Weather update: Storm Helene is supposedly giving northern & western UK, and especially Ireland a battering. We had nice sunny weather today with slight winds and temperatures in the upper 70s. We were told to expect more of the same, although maybe lower 70s. But that will be nice for us acting like tourists. Those folks who sailed yesterday evening heading back to New York on the QM2, they may have had a bumpier ride than us. It probably was not an auspicious beginning of the new captain's career. But we hope to have good weather the rest of the trip.

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Comments

[Jerry and Joyce]

Nice relaxing day.
Sounds like you accomplished all your errands. Have a good time.