London, part 2 - The hotel triangle

"The Piccadilly Palare, it's just silly slang, between me and the boys in my gang"

On the day before I flew to London, I received a frantic email from my  mom telling me to cancel my hotel, the Imperial Russell Square, and switch to the Holiday Inn Bloomsbury.  It was too late, I couldn't. Later she sent another saying it's all good, they'd moved to another hotel after staying 2 nights in mine, and it's not that far away, only 3 long blocks.

This little hotel mixup turned out to be pivotal in our trip, providing us a lot of fun opportunities. And I got to stay in London for "only" 95 pounds per night (that's about 200$) - I couldn't afford anything else if I wanted to be in the city.

Here's how the trip went for me. Leave here at 5 AM for the tiny Cologne airport. Arrive at CGN/Bonn Flughafen less than an hour later with an hour's wait for flight, which also took just under and hour. Take the airport express train to Liverpool street in London. What a lovely place to arrive, I smiled at the police in their funny black caps.

Wilkommen in London!!!

It was like Grand Central Station, and I knew I was close to my goal after only 4 hours of travel. The express train was eerily empty - I was the only person on my car. It was Pentecost so no one was about. As I gazed out the train window, I saw horses and sheep and lots of hawthorn bushes. Nearing the city, the only vehicles I saw were shiny red double-decker busses. Where was everyone!? Right, Pentecost.

Then I got to experience The Tube - London's subway. I was optimistic that I could handle it without any prior knowledge, cuz heck I live in a subway country and I'd done it in Rome too. It was bloody expensive. 4,80 pounds for a 3 station trip! Ugh. But going down the escalator into the center of the earth (really, really deep, they planted these subways) and hearing "Mind the Gap" was great.

Going back up from the center of the earth (I only got a picture on my return trip, sorry.) The center of the earth is surprisingly mild this time of year.  Note how orderly the people are riding the escalator - all of them pressed politely to the right, allowing those in a rush to stampede by if necessary. I love the politeness here.

I decided to not transfer and simply walk to my hotel area. That was my mistake. I didn't have a map - I'd counted on it being a straight shot, very simple. Well, it was, but I did it wrong and wandered around for a half hour.

Finally I found my hotel and my mom walked up, "HI!" It was 9:30 AM exactly what I had planned  (one hour time difference from Germany).

I had originally wanted to take a cheaper bus to downtown from the airport, but remembered the traffic problems and I'm so thankful to have taken the train. If you go to London, try to avoid above-ground transport if you can.

So back to my hotel story.

My little sliver of a room, perfectly adequate despite a tiny TV and the raging of the ventilation system continually, as if I was living next to a freeway. The white noise wasn't too difficult to sleep to though.

My view. In the lower left you can see a glass ceiling which is the roof of the Atrium between the two hotels. As you can see none of the windows are double paned, no one has AC and no one is allowed to fully open the windows. Thankfully it wasn't that hot out yet. From their website: "the flagship of Imperial London Hotels. We're proud of it for a reason. Offering breathtaking views over London's greatest public square"

It's just that I'd recently seen on the Internet, a list of differences between England and America, and the double-spout sinks was one aspect. It's like I'm back in my childhood home in South Park!

My step dad Joel arrived at my hotel and we sat in my tiny sliver of a room talking excitedly until my mom said I can go get breakfast if I want, it comes with the room. "On the day of checkin?" I was dubious. She said, "Oh no worries, we've been here 2 days this week and they know us."

Sure enough, I walked into the restaurant with them and was waved to a table.

The typical English breakfast was nice - I love baked beans in the morning.

 I couldn't believe it, but in the end, I got 3 free breakfast buffets for a 2-night stay.

The funny thing was, the host knew my parents, and saw me and my step dad, and on the next day, he saw me enter alone (my parents were over at the Holiday Inn enjoying a much finer breakfast than mine).

"Where's your husband this morning?" he asked. Great, that's how much I look like my mom. *sigh*

All these things popped into my head in a row, "Well, honestly he's in Germany." No, that won't do. "Well, he hated it here so he's in another hotel." That kind of sucks too. "He's in bed." I decided on.

Then I worried the rest of the day for what tomorrow's excuse would be.

After breakfast I joined my parents at their much more modern hotel and although I told the Polish host lady I am not a guest here, I'm just meeting my parents, she insisted on giving me coffee or tea. Then I saw their lovely buffet and asked my mom for some of it. I got cranberry juice and she repeatedly went back to get me things that I ate very secretly. Like that black pudding thing.

When I joined my parents for their breakfast after I'd had my own, my mom insisted that I have a key to their hotel room the entire time I was there. So I juggled two keys for three days. I placed them on the table here because I thought it was funny how I was exploiting two hotels. That is my cup of coffee on the table, see, they didn't really care that I wasn't staying there.

This is a building between our two hotels. Not sure what it means.

My mom saved me a bottle of French wine that was excellent. And she put the cheese in the photo as well because I was so excited about English cheese.

My parents are expert snackers. I had to take this photo of several of their snacks up against the big bucket of ice we got each night for our drinks. I have to laugh, in Germany, when I asked for a bucket of ice, the lady said, "Can I have your glass?" No, no glass. Bucket! My mom was nice and let me take the orange Sainsbury "cheetos" back to Germany, and I ate the last one today, very sadly.

My hotel had given me a voucher for a free dinner at a local restaurant - my parents let me choose which, of course I picked Indian. The concierge said, "Oh no, don't go there. Go to Jacques Wanbah."

My mom said, "Wan-bah?"

"No, wan-bah!"

"WAN BAH!?!"

Let me spell it for you, W-i-n-e-b-a-r."

OK then. We laughed for 3 days about this.

And he was right, the Indian buffet was the worst I'd ever had - ok, it's a buffet, it's not gonna be fresh, I know. But for me, even bad Indian food is great, and it was free!

The next night we tried to eat at A Friend At Hand, the pub between our 2 hotels, but it was packed. So we went to their hotel for dinner. I was skeptical, but I got a really nice chicken mushroom meat pie and green beans. I could only eat half of it, so I asked to take it with me.

"Back to your room, you want to take this food with you!?"

"Yes, please."

"Well, we don't have any sort of boxes or bags or whatever, sorry. But I can try.."

She came back with my food on a wooden tray, and a large metal cover over the food, and new silverware wrapped in a napkin.

She didn't know I wasn't staying in her hotel.

I would have to walk 3 blocks with that tray of "room service" and....well...it's London. I did it.

As you can see, I was trying to figure out the pound system. And I'd taken a bottle of HP along with my leftovers. I love HP! So, imagine me carrying this tray down the street (which you cannot see because they'd lined it with a paper cloth). 

I ate it for breakfast and then went up to my buffet and only ate a few soft boiled eggs. Thankfully no one asked me where "my husband" was that morning.

Why did I call this post the hotel triangle? Because my hotel was a dual hotel thingy. My hotel, the Imperial, took up an entire large city block with another hotel, the President, with a bar/restaurant called The Atrium between them. I had to walk thru this Atrium every time I wanted to get back to my parents, and through the other hotel lobby as well. At first it was confusing - which hotel am I in?!?!? but later I got good at it. My parents' hotel was so, so modern in comparison. I would have thought I was in Seattle, in the great big shiny lobby with picture books of Britain for all to read, and a massive bathroom with mirrors everywhere, and Tears for Fears playing on the speakers. I admit it, I danced a little. It was lovely.

Funnily, my mom would come over and use the concierge at my hotel often, simply cuz she knew and trusted them. They never really knew she wasn't a guest there at the time, just as her people didn't seem to care that I wasn't. 

My hotel was obviously very fine in its heyday. It was grand in so many ways. But so, so old, and not renovated.

I never once used a toilet in England that could be flushed successfully on the first attempt. The first attempt would yield nothing. The second, a little sound could be heard. The third, if you held the lever down long enough, would eventually summon a change of water in the pipe system.

I thought to myself, I hope the queen's toilet functions better than all the rest!

My first impression of London is that it's run down, needing renovation. No one has insulated glass in their windows, the paving stones are loose in the sidewalk, and you know about the toilets.

I find it strange because I consider Germany pretty run down in comparison to Seattle. I don't know if London has a shiny new section that I didn't see though. Then again, they are currently in talks to remove themselves from the EU, which I find incredible, but J tells me it's just too many rules to follow, too much cost. I see. It was annoying for me that Euros don't work in England, again, and I cannot understand the complexity of their resistance to take part. I also don't get why everything is so expensive - how does anyone afford anything there? My travel size hair spray (after my big one was taken away) was 4,50 pounds, and it was about the size of a lighter.

But that did not stop me from buying 6 blocks of cheddar cheese to take home with me, despite having no refrigeration for the 7 hour trip. English cheddar has a ranking system of how aged the cheese is, and I got all super, ultra aged cheddar. It's almost too strong for me! (Why? There's no aged cheddar in Germany.)

So many Polish people work in London, I learned how to say "Thank you" in Polish, and apparently did it correctly, cuz I got a "You're welcome" enthusiastically once.

That's all I can think of regarding our accommodations,  but I'll say more later about the historical places we visited.