...and, finally, home.
I'm sitting at the gate at Heathrow, boarding starts in 1/2 hour. What better way to kill time than updating your LJ at £1 for 10 minutes?
At the risk of recapping, since I've got no time to check the last post: Note to self: Don't leave booking Eurostar tickets until a few days before the trip. We paid €235 each, which could have been 1/3 that from Seattle. We thought we might want to take train/ferry/train option, which would have been half that amount, but decided not to, then were lazy about booking it. Eurostar has the demand pricing down pat. Anyway, we messed around in the St Gobelin neighborhood, mailed postcards (at a slow post office, of course), then rushed to the Gar du Nord station to catch the train, worried because we were 15 minutes late for checkin. Turned out the astronomical price didn't include leaving on time, it was 30 minutes delayed anyway. After an uneventful trip through the French countryside and the Chunnel, we got to London/St Pancras station, transferred via the Tube to Paddington, buying an Oyster pay-as-you-go card in the process, and managed to find the apartment-hotel a few blocks away. We spent the first evening going to Kensington Park a few blocks away and having a pub dinner while our wash was happening in the laundromat across the street.
The next day we did the open-top double-decker bus tour, another great guide with pithy observations on history and culture, plus architecture, of course. We transferred to the Thames tour boat and went downriver to Greenwich, arriving in time to hike up a little hill to the Royal Observatory (all credit accrues to the Crown, for some reason), to see the Prime Meridian, lots of old instruments, and a cool camera obscura (pinhole on a grand scale). Back to town for a Spanish restaurant and a great meal, finished up with a 10-minute conversation with one of the waiters, who had completed law studies in Turkey and was now pursuing them in GB, about the US Constitution and legal system. As usual, the furriners probably know more about our stuff than certain of our citizens. Then, another train ride back to town.
Saturday we went to the British Museum, which, like the Louvre, really takes a day to do fully; we limited ourselves to stuff that wasn't similar to the L. They only had one room for the Americas, with some great NW art, at least. We hit the 7 Wonders tour, the various Chinese dynasties, and an exhibit of American 20th century prints/etchings. Then, we went to the South Bank area of the Thames, bought some £10 theater tickets and had dinner at Giraffe, a surprisingly good chain restaurant fronting on the river walk. There was a dance-themed interactive stage happening in front of the theater, with contra before our play and big-band swing afterwards. What a total experience that day was.
Sunday we did a grueling 12-hour bus tour of Windsor Castle, followed by Stonehenge, then Bath. We didn't so much care about the castle, but the other tours that included other places were full. Windsor is another example of the accretion of art and wealth to the royals, but at least they turned it into somewhat of a museum (the QEII was supposedly there, but didn't come out to greet us). I didn't feel much of the Stonehenge vibe, but it was an awesome example of longterm intent and action, coupled with the mystery of the builders' reasons for building it. We checked out the Roman baths at Bath, of course, but only had a few minutes to hang out in the city park for the band concert that was going on. Tours are just too much in too little time; this one supposedly was originally 36 hours with an overnight in Bath; in hindsight, that would have been better.
I'll fill in more when I get home...time to catch the flight!