Expressions and experiences - London / UK / Paris COMPLETED About This Page:

[WDWfan]

Cheryl - I'm just getting around to reading TRs after my trip. You pictures are amazing. I 's Covent Garden on my trip and we stayed at the Trafalgar Hilton so your pictures of Trafalgar Square brought back wonderful memories.

[DrDolphin]

Love the lap photos!!! Too funny!!!

[stretch2864]

I'm enjoying your photo tour so much! I love the "lap" photos! Have a great weekend! I can't wait to see more when you get back!

[NanaTink]

Thanks for the update! Had to laugh at the 'lap-photos' as we have been known to do somewhat the same thing, only ours are usually 'neck photos' that turn out amazingly good!
Enjoy your visit and we will be waiting right here!

[chezp]

Monday 5 May – part five: “the big evil store”

By now, I think the others were regretting just having cake earlier, as they were all hungry, so we found somewhere to eat inside the market area. Let’s just say that I think this had to be the worst meal during the whole trip. It was just nothing special and, as for the service, the girl really needed to speak some English to do her job. I don’t mean to be unkind, but you would hope that someone serving you could at least understand the items on the menu. Even when pointed out, she was still struggling. It wasn’t good.

With my sandwich as well under my belt from earlier, I was doing fine, so I just opted for a green salad, while Mark went for some garlic bread and some olives. I think Sue went with a sandwich of some kind, although I really don’t recall. Steve decided to get a pizza and my goodness, look at the size of that garlic bread and pizza:


I wasn’t that hungry, but I did sample a small piece of Mark’s garlic bread and to be honest, it was horrible. It was so oily and had waaaay too much garlic on it for my taste. The pizza seemed to go down well though.

When we came out, we had to walk through the market, which today was antiques. We were doing fine until we walked past a record stall and that was Steve gone. The rest of us made it out fine, but he was nowhere to be seen. Eventually, we got Mark to go and do a rescue act and he emerged victorious, with Steve behind him.

It was time to do some shopping and I knew that Sue and Steve had been interested in some souvenirs from the Tube, so where better place to start than next door at the London Transport Museum? It’s been closed for a couple of years for a massive refurbishment and hopefully soon I’ll get to have a look round it, but the shop is certainly impressive – very well laid out on two levels and packed with things. Although it started off slowly at first, before long Sue and Steve were happily shopping away and had plenty of goodies to take back home with them.



Next it was over to what Sue kept calling “the big evil store”, the Disney Store. I have no idea why it was big and evil, maybe it was the fact that it persuaded them to part with even more cash? Mind you, as we’d noticed the day before in the Oxford Street store, they had a nice selection of London items and they made a fair few purchases of those items.

We walked down to catch the Tube back to the car park and, on the way, stopped off at another “big evil store” for me anyway. It’s a travel bookshop on three floors and is just like paradise for me. After some time leafing through the books on Japan and dreaming of going out there next year, we carried on walking back to the station. We did offer Sue and Steve a final chance to go into any other “big evil stores”, but they declined, so it was off to pick the car up and then back to the hotel to pick up our bags.

Then it was off out of London and back to our house. It was about as painful a drive as usual getting out of London, but soon we were home, with a quick stop at our local grocery store to restock the fridge. We showed Sue and Steve round the house and garden and then we all relaxed for a while before dinner.

Now dinner – Sue knew what we were up to tonight, but Steve had no idea. We were determined that they should have some traditional British experiences while they were over here. Well, one of those traditional British experiences, believe it or not, is to enjoy a curry. It’s the most popular dish over here these days, with an Indian takeaway in just about every town. The only issue with this was the fact that we knew Steve wasn’t exactly adventurous when it came to food, but we kept reasoning that he had survived Boma and in fact, like it so much, he wanted to go back there, so hopefully he’d be fine. When we spoke to Sue, she agreed with that assessment, so now to find out!

We were originally going to go out to an Indian restaurant that we often try out, but we were all quite tired, so we decided to go for a takeaway instead. Steve went for some tandoori chicken, while Sue tried the chicken korma and tried some poppadums and sauces for starters. So how did it work out? Absolutely fine! Steve ate all his tandoori chicken and seemed to really enjoy it – trust me, that is what he’s doing in these photos:



When we were done, it wasn’t long before we were all off to bed.

The weather today was hot, sunny and in the 70’s.
The best thing today was the view from St. Paul’s.
The worst thing today was climbing those steps to see that view!
The funniest thing today was our re-enactment of the Bloody Tower.
Today we tried getting a cab with Sue and Steve
And the result was I think they enjoyed the ride.
The most magical moment today was seeing the Crown Jewels.

Next: “firm, but tactful”

[Colexis Mom]

Sorry lunch was a bust What a cook statue of the peacock with the trailing flowers And glad Steve survived the Indian food More please

[DrDolphin]

Dinner sounds wonderful!!!

[WDWfan]

When DD was studying in Englad she learned to curry. When I came over to visit one of the places she had to take me was to the Indian restaurant near campus. I had never realized how popular Indian food was in the UK before that. Glad you found something that Steve liked!

[mcc0313]

What a wonderfully filled day...the castle looked so interesting - it makes me want to visit England so much more after seeing the pictures...

The pictures were great....everything is just so beautiful.

You topped the evening off with a yummy dinner relaxing at home...no better way to end the day.

[chezp]

Tuesday 6 May – part one: “firm, but tactful”

It was a relatively late start, as we didn’t have to go anywhere first thing. By the time we all got ready, it was about 9.45am and we took Sue and Steve first through Maidstone, so they could see the Archbishop’s Palace, where we got married, and the Carriage Museum, before stopping off at Aylesford, a village a few miles away. It’s essentially the stereotypical British village.



The journey to Windsor wasn’t great, as we ran into problems with the M25, the car park around London that sometimes pretends to be a motorway and eventually we made it there just before midday, so we had missed the Changing of the Guard there.



We ran into an even bigger problem when we arrived at Windsor Castle – our London Passes didn’t seem to be working. I had no idea why, as both Sue and I had checked the website before we purchased them and had both read it the same way, that they were valid for three days from the “time of activation” – well, what does that mean to you? To both of us, that meant 72 hours from the time we activated them, which was around 2pm on Saturday, so in theory they should’ve worked fine this morning. No go.

A manager came out to talk to us and told us he could call London Pass for us and that sounded like a good plan. By now, I was absolutely furious at what had happened and, as Sue and Steve will probably now tell you, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. I’ve learnt a lot from my father and when I get angry, I am calm and measured and that can be very difficult to deal with. It was an interesting conversation with the woman, who didn’t once dispute what was said on the website or the fact that it was misleading – and midway through, she even went to check the website, so I know that what we read there was exactly how we remembered it and no doubt she had the thought that it was misleading as well…

She did offer me VIP tickets for the day, but quickly retracted that when she found out that there were four of us – to me, another admission that there was an issue. I also took the opportunity to tell her how disappointed we all were at having to stand in line with the passes now, compared to the previous system they had operated. Don’t get me wrong, the London Pass is good value if you’re going to see a lot of expensive attractions in a short period of time, but it just doesn’t work now as well as it did in the past and I’m sorry, but the way it’s marketed is misleading. Just remember, if you need one, it’s for a set number of calendar and if you activate it midway through the day, you’ll miss half the day. That’s not explained and it needs to be.

Earlier on in the vacation, I had told Sue and Steve how I’d received a staff award for being “firm, but tactful” in a particularly nasty case I had to deal with. They kept reminding me as we went round Windsor that the exchange they had me seen have on the phone was a perfect example of me being “firm, but tactful”!

When I put the phone down, I had no real resolution to the issue – our passes still didn’t work, but I felt a bit better. The manager who had connected me had obviously been terrified for me. He did everything he could to make it up to us and immediately offered us group rates to try and compensate us for the problems we’d experienced. He was a really decent guy and tried his best to put right a situation that wasn’t even of his own making.

Finally, we passed through security and picked up our audio guide. They asked us what we wanted and we all opted for English, although part of me was tempted to test out my languages and try French, Italian, German or Spanish – or even Japanese to see how my lessons in that would help me out! However, someone had to be different. Steve decided to opt for the children’s version, while we all stuck with the adult’s version. We headed up towards the State Apartments, getting some photos on the way:


The Round Tower – the picture postcard image of Windsor Castle


Next: “I love the kids’ version”

[JaimeandChad]

Great updates!! And about the carpark that masquerades as a motorway! And a kids version? Can't wait to see what the difference was.

[Colexis Mom]

Sorry about the issues with the tickets Windsor Castle is beautiful

[lauren-roxy]

Sorry you had to deal with the tickets first thing. Sounds like things got mcuh better though!!

[emtpej]

Originally Posted by JaimeandChad

Great updates!! And about the carpark that masquerades as a motorway!

We have that here, too. It's called the Beltway...