Jolly Olde England

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We had a nice flight from Nepal through Qatar on to England. The English are so nice and orderly which is quite a shock from our previous travels. People actually line up in queues and give you lots of personal space. We caught the “Underground” or the “Tube” to our guesthouse and it turned out to be the smallest most expensive place we have stayed on our entire trip. We had to take our backpacks off in the hallway because the room was so small. I could sit on the toilet, brush my teeth and shower at the same time. I had to leave the room to change my mind.

After a night walk through our South Kensington neighborhood we decided the first the thing we needed to do was get some clothes. You gotta remember we’ve been in Southeast Asia for the past year. Our clothes consisted of nothing more than shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops and the temperature has averaged around 30 degrees. The temps the first night were around 9 degrees! We hit a discount store and picked up some much needed pants, socks and hoodies.

That afternoon we headed out to central London for our get lost in the city tour. We caught a double decker bus down to Picadilly Circus. After looking for elephants and flying trapezes, even though we didn’t find any; we decided to keep walking the city to see what was up. Walking through the parks we spotted the Houses of Parliament, some other big cool buildings and Buckingham Palace. No one asked us in for tea, so after some photos we slowly made our way back towards Picadilly Circus to see the area at night. It was nice as we walked around checking out the scene and all the people. We decided to stop in for dinner at a Chinese buffet. After a year of eating Asia food, why did we think this would be a good idea?

After a couple of days in London we decided to head south to Brighton, on the coast. We were amazed and amused by the bus operation. We were given our own seats, a safety brief, told to wear our seat belts and had the workings of the water closet explained to us. On our past bus travels we have shared our two person seats with up to four others, sat in the aisles, you can also ride on top of the bus, sometimes the seats are not fastened down and if you need the toilet tell the driver and he will pull off the side of the road for you to go.

Anyway, Brighton is a cool coastal town with a great historic pier full of amusements and some really nice areas throughout the town to walk about. It was off season so it wasn’t too busy which made our walk nice. In some ways it reminded us of Magazine St. in New Orleans with the upscale shops in one area and the more Bohemian shops in another. The pubs are really cool and just what you would expect. I took Ruthie out for her first fish and chips dinner, with it soaked in malt vinegar and wrapped in paper. She loved it.

From here we made it back to London for a flight to Norway so we can visit our friend Karin in Trondheim!

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Photos

Our tiny loo
You could sit on the toilet, brush your teeth and shower all at the same time.

Makes a lot of sense.
These were at the crosswalks to help idiots like us.

London eye
A view from St. James Park.

Ruthie on the pier
Brighton in the back

Royal Pavilion
Brighton